HE  FAITH 
BY  WHICH 
WE  LIVE 


BX  5930  .F5  1919 

Fiske,  Charles,  1868-1942. 

The  faith  by  which  we  live 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/faithbywhichweliOOfisk 


THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH 
WE  LIVE 


The  Faith  By  Which 


We  Live 


A  PLAIN,  PRACTICAL  EXPO- 
SITION OF  THE  RELIGION 
OF  THE  INCARNATE  LORD 


ri^^'^  ofTbS^ 


UN  17  19iq 


By  the  Right  Reverend 

CHARLES  TISKE,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Bishop  Coadjutor  of  Central  New  York 

Author  of  "The  Experiment  of  Faith",  "Back  to  Christ' 
"Sacrifice  and  Service",  etc. 


* 


Morehouse  Publishing  Co. 

Milwaukee,  Wis. 


COPYRIGHT  BY  THE 

MOREHOUSE  PUBLISHING  CO. 

1919 


TO   THE    MEMORY 
OF 

CHARLES  ANDREWS 


a   courteous   Gentleman,   a  great  Citizen,   a  distinguished  Jurist,   a 
faithful  Churchman,  a  devout,  sincere,  and  consistent  Christian 


this  volume,  because  his  urgent  suggestion  {in  a  request  made  a  fev 

months  before  his  death)  led  to  its  publication.     May  it  train 

others  in  the  Faith,  teach  them  to  love  the  Church,  and 

help  them  to  live  the  Truth,  that  so  they  may  adorn 

the  doctrine  of  Cod  our  Saviour  in  all  things. 


PREFACE  vii 


PREFACE 

THIS  practical  little  book  aims  to  present  in  pop- 
ular form,  free  from  technicalities,  some  of  the 
great  foundation  truths  of  Christianity  as  they  are 
related  to  life.  It  is  a  thorough  revision  and  rear- 
rangement, with  some  additions,  of  a  work  which  I 
published  some  years  ago  under  the  title.  The  Religion 
of  the  Incarnation.  The  revision  and  rewriting  have 
made  it  practically  a  new  book  and  I  have  given  it, 
therefore,  a  new  name.  In  its  earlier  form  the  book 
has  been  out  of  print  for  several  years.  I  have  de- 
layed reissuing  it,  first,  because  of  doubts  as  to  the  real 
need  of  another  edition,  and  second,  because  I  was  not 
content  to  have  it  reprinted  without  the  revision  it 
has  now  had. 

Kepeated  requests  for  its  publication  have  con- 
vinced me  that  it  still  has  real  usefulness.  There 
seems  to  be  no  other  book  which  quite  takes  its  place. 
When  the  clergy  of  Porto  Kico  tried  to  find  a  popular 
manual  for  translation  into  Spanish  for  use  in  Latin 
America,  they  could  discover  nothing  which  better 
met  their  need  and  it  has  lately  been  translated  and 
published  and  given  a  wider  circulation  as  printed  in 
monthly  installments  in  El  Nuevo  Siglo. 


viii  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

While  the  revision  has  made  it  a  new  book,  I  have 
been  surprised,  nevertheless,  to  discover  how  little  it 
needed  change  in  substance  rather  than  form.  The 
old  truths  of  our  religion  are  ever  new.  New  facts 
but  show  the  vital  power  of  the  old  faith.  The 
terrible  years  of  war  through  which  the  world  has 
passed  would  have  driven  one  mad,  were  it  not  that 
we  had  that  faith  to  live  by.  A  gospel  that  tells  of  a 
God  who  entered  into  the  tragedy  of  human  life  and 
understands  and  sympathizes  has  been  the  only  gospel 
for  years  of  trial  and  dark  struggle.  I  wonder  if 
others  of  the  clergy  have  been  discovering,  as  I  have, 
not  that  they  cannot  preach  the  old  faith,  but  that 
they  can  preach  nothing  else.  The  things  we  used  to 
say  have  not  lost  their  value;  they  have  gained  new 
force.  With  but  the  change  of  a  sentence  or  two  in 
their  practical  application,  they  bring  new  messages 
for  men  and  women  of  a  new  age. 

I  wonder,  too,  whether  others  have  felt,  almost 
as  a  new  revelation,  the  deep  significance  and  prac- 
tical power  of  the  faith  we  have  been  preaching — ^but 
possibly,  until  now,  preaching  somewhat  academi- 
cally. In  a  remarkable  charge  to  his  clergy,  deliv- 
ered during  some  of  the  darkest  days  of  the  war,  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford  showed  how  the  dominant  ideas 
which  have  been  laying  hold  of  men — the  idea  of 
liberty  for  all  and  of  the  equal  spiritual  worth  of 
every  individual ;  the  conception  of  brotherhood  and 
of  sacrificial  service;  the  larger  ideal  of  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  nations  in  a  world-wide  human  commu- 


Gore:  Dominant  Ideas  a/nd  Corrective  Principles. 


PREFACE  ix 

nity — are  really  Christian  ideas  and  are  necessarily 
involved  in  any  honest  interpretation  of  the  Gospel. 
In  its  great  task  of  self-reformation  and  world- 
redemption,  the  Bishop  summons  the  Christian  com- 
munity to  return  with  the  old  enthusiasm,  to  the  old 
religion  of  the  Creed,  the  Bible,  the  Church,  and  the 
Sacraments,  but  to  interpret  these  in  terms  of  what 
is  interesting  everyone  who  has  a  heart  to  feel  and  a 
brain  to  think  and  so  "to  make  men  feel  afresh  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  true  prophet  of  liberty,  brother- 
hood, and  catholicity". 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  much  simpler  and 
more  elementary;  but  in  its  humbler  way  it  points 
out  the  same  lesson — not  so  much  by  way  of  showing 
the  religious  and  moral  changes  which  the  great 
world  catastrophe  has  brought  about  and  the  Chris- 
tian answer  to  the  problems  it  presents  (this  has 
been  done  by  others  in  the  years  when  we  were  in 
the  thick  of  the  conflict),  as  by  stating  what  the 
Gospel  revelation  and  the  Gospel  scheme  of  redemp- 
tion really  are  and  the  grounds  on  which  we  accept 
both — and  stating  this  in  the  every-day  language  of 
every-day  people. 

I  do  not  like  to  call  this  a  manual  of  instruction. 
It  is  that,  but  I  hope  it  is  more.  It  is  a  plain, 
practical,  common-sense  exposition  of  the  Christian 
faith,  written  in  language  that  the  average,  every-day 
man  can  understand ;  but  it  is  not — or  I  hope  it  is  not 
— just  a  summary  and  explanation  of  a  series  of  dry 
doctrines.  It  is  both  creed  and  conduct,  belief  and 
practice,  dogma  and  devotion — a  statement  of  faith. 


X  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

but  the  statement  of  a  faith  by  which  men  live.  The 
doctrines  of  Christianity  are  but  the  logical  exponents 
of  its  facts.  We  accept  them,  not  as  mere  items  of 
information,  but  as  interpretations  of  those  facts 
which  are  the  springs  and  sources  of  the  Christian 
life — ^that  life  to  which  we  would  re-dedicate  ourselves 
in  these  days  of  splendid  service. 

Syracuse,  New  York.  C.  F. 


CONTENTS 


CONTENTS 

I. — Cbeed  and  Conduct 1 

II. — Why  I  Believe  in  God 15 

III.— The  Holy  Trinity 25 

rv. — The  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  -     -     -     -  33 

V. — The  Incarnation  of  Our  Lord  -     -     -     -  40 

VI. — The  Incarnation  and  God's  Lo\t:  -    -     -  49 

VII. — The  Incarnation  and  God's  Personality  56 

VIII. — The  Incarnation  and  God's  Presence     -  62 

IX. — Sin  and  the  Fall 68 

X. — The  Atonement 77 

XI. — The  Holy  Spirit,  the  Life-Giver    -    -     -  86 

XII. — The  Practice  of  Prayer 94 

XIII. — Christ  and  His  Church 108 

XIV. — Choosing  a  Church 123 

XV. — The  Extension  of  the  Incarnation  -    -  137 

XVI. — The  Incarnation  Applied 147 

XVII.— The  Baptismal  Gift 156 

XVIII. — Infant  Baptism 166 

XIX. — The  Eucharistic  Sacrifice 175 

XX. — The  Holy  Communion 185 

XXI. — The  Eucharistic  Presence 192 

XXII. — Preparation  for  Holy  Communion     -    -  200 

XXIII. — Confession  and  Absolution 209 


xu  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

XXIV. — The  Christian  Priesthood 220 

XXV. — The  Apostolic  Succession 230 

XXVI. — Confirmation  and  Other  Sacraments  -  243 

XXVII. — The  Bible  and  Its  Inspiration    -     -    -  249 

XXVIII. — Some  Bible  Problems 258 

XXIX. — The  Certainty  of  a  Future  Life  -    -    -  266 

XXX. — The  Proof  of  the  Resurrection    -    -    -  272 

XXXI.— The  Faithful  Departed 281 

XXXII. — The  Intermediate  State 292 

XXXIII.— Heaven  and  Hell 301 

XXXIV.— The  Angelic  World 313 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT 


The  Faith  By  Which  We  Live 

I. 

CREED  AND  CONDUCT 

THOSE  who  have  been  engaged  in  religious  work 
in  the  home  camps  or  abroad,  during  the  years 
of  the  Great  War  now  happily  ended,  have  had  un- 
usual opportunities  to  judge  of  the  religious  life  of 
America  and  of  the  general  effectiveness  of  our  Church 
work.  The  tale  they  bring  has  not  been  altogether 
encouraging. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  millions  of  Americans 
enrolled  as  soldiers  and  sailors  professed  some  relig- 
ion. This  profession  was  usually  definite  enough  to 
include  preference  for  some  particular  religious  body, 
if  not  the  claim  of  adherence  to  it.  But  of  those  who 
stated  that  they  were  identified  with  some  Christian 
denomination  large  numbers  admitted,  in  response  to 
questions,  that  they  rarely  if  ever  go  to  church. 
Attendance  at  public  worship  is  at  best  infrequent, 
irregular,  and  spasmodic,  often  confined  to  a  service 
now  and  then  on  some  special  occasion  for  a  sermon 
to  the  lodge,  or  something  of  a  similar  sort.     While 


2  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  mass  of  men  are  listed  as  giving  some  religious 
preference,  an  appallingly  large  per  cent,  of  them  re- 
port that  they  are  not  baptized.  They  do  not  know  the 
reasons  for  baptism  and  apparently  have  never  heard 
any  explanation  of  its  meaning  or  necessity.  This  is 
particularly  true  of  one  of  the  great  middle  western 
camps  where  a  faithful  canvass  was  made  by  the  chap- 
lains. In  most  cases  investigation  was  not  carried  so 
far,  but  there  are  indications  that  the  facts  are  about 
the  same  everywhere.  Young  fellows  who  have  sung 
in  choirs,  some  who  as  boys  have  been  members  of 
vested  choirs  for  several  years,  have  never  seen  a 
baptism  nor  heard  a  word  about  that  sacrament  either 
in  sermon  or  instruction. 

As  to  the  men  who  state  that  they  are  Church 
members  fully  fifty  per  cent,  of  those  questioned  ad- 
mit that  they  have  not  received  Communion  in  years ; 
some  have  never  received.  They  do  not  know  how  the 
Holy  Communion  is  administered  or  the  reasons  for 
its  celebration. 

Among  all  the  men  there  is  found  a  pathetic 
ignorance  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  simplest  facts  of 
Christianity.  Though  brought  up  in  so-called  Bible 
churches,  whose  chief  boast  is  that  they  teach  the 
Word,  large  numbers  of  men  have  no  knowledge  of 
Scripture  beyond  a  vague  remembrance  of  a  few 
scattered  texts,  some  of  the  verses  of  the  shepherd 
psalm,  an  Old  Testament  story  like  that  of  David  and 
Goliath,  one  or  two  of  the  parables,  perhaps  an  inci- 
dent in  the  life  of  Christ.  Few  of  them  have  any 
clear  idea  of  our  Lord's  life  as  a  whole.     They  know 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  3 

something  of  the  Christmas  story  and  (less  clearly) 
the  story  of  Good  Friday — ^that  is  all.  No  one  has 
ever  taught  them  (at  least  not  in  such  a  way  as  to  fix 
it  in  their  memory)  who  Christ  was,  when  He  was 
born,  where  He  lived,  what  He  did,  why  He  was  put 
to  death,  how  He  rose.  Certainly  they  do  not  know 
the  tremendous  claims  He  made  or  the  traditional  in- 
terpretation of  the  meaning  of  His  life.  They  do  not 
really  understand  the  simplest  statements  of  Christian 
belief.  The  creeds  are  a  sealed  book.  Often  (so  it 
would  seem)  they  have  heard  little  of  creeds,  though 
they  have  a  rather  definite  prejudice  against  dogmas 
or  doctrines — "a  plain  man  has  no  use  for  them"  they 
declare. 

Finally,  they  do  not  pray.  Pressed  for  reasons, 
they  say  that  it  does  no  good  or  that  nobody  ever 
taught  them  how.  At  any  rate,  many  of  them  when 
questioned  admit  that  they  do  not  say  their  prayers, 
either  on  their  knees  or  after  they  have  tumbled  into 
bed,  unless  we  except  an  occasional  recital  of  the 
Lord's  prayer  or  some  childish  rhyming  petition. 

This  is  not,  of  course,  a  criticism  of  the  soldier. 
Assuredly  not.  The  men  whose  religious  convictions 
and  practices  we  have  had  an  opportunity  of  observing 
are  a  cross  section  of  American  society,  representing 
every  class  and  type  of  American  life.  What  they 
are  is  what  America  is — if  it  is  as  good.  What  they 
believe  and  do  is  about  what  the  mass  of  the  American 
people  believe  and  do.  What  they  are  ignorant  of  we 
may  fairly  suppose  are  the  things  of  which  American 
men  generally,   in  about  the  same  proportion,   are 


4  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ignorant  or  to  which  they  are  indifferent.  Of  course 
there  are  numbers  of  active  Church  members  and 
equally  of  course  many  of  these  are  well-instructed 
and  consistent  in  the  practice  of  their  religion,  but 
the  number  of  men  who  are  not  is  a  serious  indictment 
of  American  Christianity  and  to  most  people  an  unex- 
pected revelation  of  the  inefficiency  of  American 
church  organizations. 

I  repeat  that  this  is  not  a  criticism  of  the  soldier. 
Some  of  us  who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  investigate 
know  what  religious  conditions  are  in  rural  America 
and  in  villages  and  small  towns — conditions  that  led 
the  late  President  Hyde  to  select  as  the  title  of  a  study 
of  rural  conditions  "Impending  Paganism  in  New 
England."  I  talk  with  all  sorts  of  people  as  I  travel 
about  the  country  and  I  know  that  even  the  most 
startling  figures  of  the  weakness  of  Christianity  in  the 
small  towns  do  not  tell  half  the  story.  If  we  could 
get  as  thorough  a  survey  of  city  life  we  should  not 
find  it  much  better.^ 

Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  this  plain  statement 
of  facts  is  an  attack  upon  the  soldier's  morals.  Grave 
moral  problems  were  revealed  by  the  draft,  it  is  true, 
but  never  have  these  problems  been  faced  as  frankly 
and  fearlessly  as  now  and  never  has  there  been  so 
thorough  a  campaign  of  education  or  so  effective  a 
programme  of  protection.  Young  men  in  France  and 
in  camp  here  were  safer  than  young  men  at  home. 

The  tremendously  encouraging  thing  to  which  all 


See  my  Sacrifice  and  Service,  pages  3-6. 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  5 

Christian  warworkers  testify  is  that  our  men  have 
shown  a  fine,  sturdy  moral  earnestness  and  conviction. 
With  all  their  ignorance  they  are  really  religious  at 
heart.  Were  it  not  for  the  reticence  and  reserve 
which  is  characteristic  of  most  men  when  religion  is 
discussed,  we  should  probably  learn  even  more  for  our 
encouragement,  but  there  are  indications  in  plenty 
that  the  soul  of  the  soldier  is  sound.  An  overseas  test 
made  repeatedly  among  soldiers  everywhere,  from  the 
landing  ports  to  the  trenches,  showed  that  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  men  have  very  clear  ideas 
as  to  what  they  consider  to  be  cardinal  virtues  and 
contemptible  sins.  Courage,  unselfishness,  generosity, 
and  modesty  or  humility  make  up  their  code  of 
morals.  All  these  are  ^^ed  rock"  virtues.  A  well- 
known  American  evangelist,  Mr.  Fred  B.  Smith,  who 
has  had  unusual  opportunities  for  observing  the  men 
and  talking  with  them  frankly,  declares  that  the  more 
one  studies  the  set  of  standards  which  the  young  men 
put  before  them  the  more  one  is  amazed  at  the  un- 
erring way  in  which  they  have  picked  out  the  great 
essentials  of  character.  "I  do  not  claim,"  he  says, 
''that  all  men  have  these  standards.  The  draft  was 
a  great  net  which  drew  together  millions  of  men  of 
all  classes,  all  degrees  of  education.  They  are  not 
angels!  Some  of  them  are  far  from  it.  But  the 
code  here  given  does  express  the  prevailing  sentiment 
of  the  mass  of  the  men." 

My  own  experience,  once  more,  has  taught  me  to 
be  an  optimist  about  the  average  man  everywhere. 
He  has  very  simple  ideas  of  religion  but  he  always 


6  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

gets  down  to  essentials.  To  him  religion  means  un- 
selfishness, generosity,  sincerity,  cleanliness  of  soul,  a 
genuineness  and  straightforward  honesty  that  despises 
cant  and  therefore  is  chary  of  religious  professions, 
an  abiding  faith  in  goodness,  a  very  real  humility  be- 
cause of  his  own  defects  (or,  as  we  should  say,  sins) 
and  a  readiness,  for  that  reason,  to  forgive  defects  or 
sins  in  others.  He  has  only  a  vague  consciousness  of 
God  and  yet  somehow,  whether  he  prays  or  not,  we 
feel  that  he  is  conscious  of  Him — as  the  child  is  con- 
scious of  the  mother  in  another  part  of  the  house  and 
would  miss  her  if  he  knew  she  had  gone  away/ 

All  this  gives  us  courage,  but  it  is  the  courage  of 
brave  endeavor  to  make  the  most  of  the  essential 
virtues,  not  the  audacity  which  leads  us  to  deny 
unpleasant  facts.  Camp  and  field  and  hospital  have 
given  wonderful  testimony  to  the  splendid  possibili- 
ties of  humanity.  Only,  as  Hankey  reminds  us,  men 
fail  to  connect  these  things  with  Jesus  Christ,  much 
less  do  they  connect  them  with  His  Church.  They 
do  not  see  that  the  virtues  they  admire  come  to  frui- 
tion in  Christian  soil.  The  pity  of  it  is  that,  because 
men  have  not  really  known  Christianity,  we  have  been 
missing  all  this  fine  service  and  men  have  failed  to 
develop  their  latent  possibilities.  What  splendid 
things  we  might  have  done,  with  such  material  to 
work  on! 

The  fundamental  moral  ideas  are  instinctive. 
Under  the  generous  impulse  of  service  and  sacrifice 


'  See  The  Experiment  of  Faith,  chapter  iii. 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  7 

in  stirring  times  they  are  manifested  in  a  splendid 
way.  But — they  are  so  easily  forgotten.  Men's 
morals  fall  so  quickly  when  the  props  and  supports 
are  gone.  At  the  high  call  they  rise  to  splendid 
heights,  but  in  humdrum  days  ideals  are  dulled  all  too 
soon.  The  man  who  has  the  courage  of  the  crisis 
often  fails  in  the  courage  of  the  commonplace  and  the 
moral  instincts  are  less  clear  when  it  is  only  ordinary 
duty  that  calls  them  out. 

Once  more:  Even  if  the  heart  of  America  is 
right,  as  we  really  believe  it  is,  it  is  right  in  spite  of 
our  religious  incompetence.  There  is  still  a  lot  of 
"diffused  Christianity  in  the  world.  Men  are  living 
by  the  impulses  and  motives  of  a  former  faith.  Ideals 
of  religious  and  god-fearing  ancestors  are  not  rooted 
up  in  a  generation.  Many  a  man  who  gives  no  time 
to  prayer  or  public  worship  and  little  thought  to 
religion  and  morals  has  an  instinctive  "faith  of  in- 
heritance". 

But  what  about  the  next  generation?  We  were 
drifting  far  and  fast,  here  in  America,  were  we  not? 
We  had  got  a  long  way  off  from  the  old  moral  moor- 
ings. Our  spiritual  consciousness  was  sadly  dulled, 
our  religious  instincts  sadly  weakened,  our  moral 
restraints  sadly  relaxed,  our  standards  sadly  lowered. 
Fortunately  for  us,  the  war  came  before  it  was  too  late 
— war  which  stripped  us  of  some  of  our  creature  com- 
forts and  made  the  things  of  the  spirit  loom  larger, 
war  which  summoned  us  to  fight  for  an  ideal,  war 
against  enemies  who  had  made  sin  so  hideously  ugly 
that  it  has  to  some  extent  shamed  it  out  of  our  own 


8  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

hearts.  We  were  preserved  from  utter  surrender  to 
love  of  luxury,  selfish  ease,  materialism,  moral  in- 
difference, money-madness.  And  we  have  discovered 
that  at  the  core  American  life  is  still  sound.  It  is  not 
too  late  to  save  us. 

An  ofiBcer  overseas  puts  it  clearly  in  a  letter  sent 
to  me  recently:  "Now  that  the  brutality,  bestiality, 
and  crimes  against  women  have  shown  me  here  in 
devastated  France  how  horrible  sin  can  become,  I 
have  asked  myself  often  why  I  am  as  decent  a  man 
as  I  am,  for  I  frankly  acknowledge  that  I  have  not 
been  very  keen  on  religion.  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  most  of  my  goodness  is  inherited  good- 
ness. I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  if  I  get  back  I 
shall  do  more  to  pass  on  to  my  children  what  I  got 
from  devout,  religious  parents.  I  shall  try  to  create 
in  my  home  more  of  the  Christian  atmosphere  in 
which  I  was  brought  up.  I  don't  want  my  boy  to 
start  handicapped/' 

I  honestly  believe  that  only  in  Jesus  Christ  shall 
we  find  sure  salvation.  I  want  to  make  men  under- 
stand that  all  the  ideals  of  goodness  they  ever  had  are 
found  in  Christ — and  found  there  to  perfection.  I 
want  them  to  recognize  their  unacknowledged  debt  to 
Christ.  I  want  them  to  see,  also,  that  everything 
Christ  was  God  is.  I  want  them  to  have  moral 
strength  and  permanence  and  I  believe  that  in  Him 
is  the  only  source  of  moral  power  which  is  sure  and 
unfailing.  I  do  not  believe  that  Christian  morals  will 
last  long  apart  from  Christian  faith  and  I  think. 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  9 

therefore,  that  it  is  important  for  the  churches  to  in- 
augurate a  campaign  of  instruction — not  merely  a 
preaching  crusade  or  mission  but  a  campaign  of  care- 
ful, regular,  systematic,  practical  instruction.  We 
must  have  "a  reason  for  the  hope  that  is  in  us". 
Unless  our  moral  life  is  deep  rooted,  it  will  soon 
wither. 

Men,  whether  in  camp  or  at  home,  are  wonderfully 
responsive  to  straight,  definite  Christian  teaching. 
They  are  sick  unto  death  of  the  second  and  third  rate 
lecturettes  on  ethics  which  we  have  substituted  for 
Christian  preaching.  They  are  weary  beyond  ex- 
pression of  pulpit  appeals  to  patriotism,  denunciations 
of  "booze''  and  attacks  upon  evils  everybody  recog- 
nizes and  nobody  fears  to  condemn.  (They  want 
religion  linked  up  to  life,  but  if  evils  are  to  be  as- 
sailed there  are  crying  social  and  economic  evils 
which  it  takes  courage  to  mention!)  They  want 
something  strong  and  definite,  instead  of  the  weak, 
watery,  colorless  stream  of  platitudinous  moralizing 
with  which  they  have  been  deluged  from  Sunday 
school  days  on.  Their  happy-go-lucky  acquiescence 
in  an  indefinite  religion  is  not  their  fault.  Says  one 
chaplain,*  whose  opportunities  for  observation  have 
been  unusually  wide : 

'^ith  most  of  the  men,  one  meets  not  merely 
with  no  resentment  but  with  a  positive  interest  in 
religion  from  the  beginning.  Vital  Christianity  Tiits 
them  where  they  live'.     Simple,  virile  preaching  of 


» The  Rev.  Bernard  Iddings  Bell. 


10  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

God,  of  His  importance,  His  reality.  His  friendship, 
His  power.  His  sternness.  His  love,  of  the  need  for 
repentance,  of  the  need  for  that  help  which  is  some- 
times, but  not  in  the  camp,  called  'grace',  of  the  grim 
viciousness  of  that  animal  selfishness  which  is  called 
'sin',  of  the  strength  and  manliness  of  the  God-Man 
Jesus  Christ,  of  the  heroism  of  Calvary,  of  the  possi- 
bility of  our  becoming,  with  His  help,  like  Him,  real 
men  and  not  mere  'beasts  that  walk  on  our  hind  legs', 
of  the  Church  as  the  blessed  company  of  His  friends, 
of  the  sacraments  as  human  touches  from  a  present 
Lord — ^they  love  it !  I  have  heard  them  applaud  and 
cheer  it.  I  have  seen  them  pour  out  after  sermons 
and  thank  the  preacher  for  it — not  the  sentimental 
goody-goodys,  but  big,  strong,  husky  fellows  with 
grips  of  steel." 

This  book  has  been  written  to  supply  the  need  of 
instruction.  It  gives  practical  if  solid  teaching,  on 
which  mbre  popular  courses  of  instruction  may  be 
based. 

What  is  written  here  is  grounded  in  the  assump- 
tion that  what  a  man  believes  is  as  important  as  what 
he  does,  just  because  as  a  rule  what  he  does  will  de- 
pend on  what  he  believes.  One  cannot  divorce  creed 
and  character.  The  Christian  character  is  really  the 
outcome  of  the  Christian  creed.  If  we  surrender  the 
creed,  with  its  insistence  upon  the  facts  of  our  Lord's 
life,  in  time  we  shall  lose  the  character  which  sprang 
out  of  it.  Never  again  will  it  be  possible  to  say,  with 
casual  and  careless  finality,  that  it  makes  no  difference 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  1 1 

what  a  man  believes.  Prussianism  has  stamped  the 
lie  forever  on  that  plausible  untruth. 

After  all,  what  are  dogmas?  It  is  always  well  to 
define  terms:  what,  then,  are  Christian  dogmas? 
Simply  the  logical  statement  of  Christian  facts. 
Many  of  those  who  object  to  doctrinal  teaching  are 
sincere  believers  in  Jesus  Christ.  Let  us  start  there. 
Who  was  He?  What  was  He?  Where  are  we  to 
learn  about  Him?  How  does  He  bring  us  the  life 
eternal  ?  How  are  we  to  keep  it  ?  How  does  He  save 
us  and  how  and  where  are  we  to  receive  the  benefit  of 
the  work  He  has  done  for  us  ?  These  and  a  hundred 
other  questions  spring  up  at  once  and  Christian  dog- 
mas are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  answers  to 
such  questions.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the  im- 
portant thing  is  to  follow  Christ,  even  though  we  can- 
not adequately  define  Him,  but  the  kind  of  obedience 
we  render  and  the  faithfulness  of  our  following  in 
His  steps  will  depend  on  our  answers  to  questions 
like  these.  One  who  is  alive  to  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  life  for  his  own  soul  will  not  rest  satisfied 
until  he  has  learned  all  that  can  be  known  about  the 
Master — what  were  His  relations  to  the  Father  whom 
He  came  to  reveal,  on  what  His  authority  rests, 
whether  or  not  He  is  an  infallible  guide,  why  He  may 
demand  our  allegiance  and  our  love. 

If  we  were  to  teach  doctrine  as  a  mere  shibboleth, 
excluding  all  who  cannot  frame  to  pronounce  some 
test  word  aright,  men  could  not  condemn  us  too 
strongly.  Dogma  divorced  from  life  would  be  useless 
— worse  than  useless.     But  if  the  doctrines  of  Chris- 


12  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

tianity  are  simply  the  logical  expression  of  its  facts, 
we  cannot  be  rid  of  creeds  even  if  we  would. 

Every  doctrine  of  the  creed  has  its  influence  on 
conduct.  Our  whole  thought  of  the  purpose  of  life 
depends  on  our  grasp  of  these  spiritual  realities.  The 
conception  of  God  as  a  moral  governor  is  that  which 
gives  us  a  moral  standard  of  action.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  Future  Life  gives  us  support  in  all  our  per- 
plexities; by  it  we  are  led  to  believe  that  we  see  only 
a  fragment  of  a  vast  scheme  and  that  injustice  and 
oppression,  pain  and  sorrow,  will  be  remedied  in  the 
world  that  is  to  come.  The  conception  of  the  Incar- 
nation teaches  us  to  recognize  a  new  and  ineffaceable 
relation  between  man  and  man;  if  Christ  took  upon 
Him  our  human  nature  every  man,  white  or  black, 
good  or  bad,  saint  or  sinner,  has  in  him  some  likeness 
to  Christ  and  must  not  be  neglected  or  despised. 
The  conception  of  the  Trinity  tells  us  that  subordi- 
nation is  consistent  with  equality  and  that  it  is  the 
glory  of  the  Triune  God  to  be  one  "by  a  moral  living 
for  and  in  each  other,  in  a  mutual  devotion  such  as 
serves  as  an  example  for  men."*  The  conception  of 
the  Atonement  declares  to  us  the  conquest  of  evil 
through  suffering,  tells  us  of  a  Christ  crucified 
through  weakness  but  living  through  the  power  of 
God,  and  shows  us  the  glory  of  self-sacrifice,  the  moral 
beauty  of  a  life  given  for  others.  What  message  has 
equalled  that  message  during  the  long  years  of  agony 
through  which  the  world  has  passed?     The  concep- 


Mason:     The  Faith  of  the  Gospel. 


CREED  AND  CONDUCT  13 

tion  of  the  Eesurrection  makes  every  part  of  life  im- 
portant; teaching,  as  it  does,  the  resurrection  of  the 
flesh,  it  impresses  on  ns  the  sacredness  of  our  bodies 
as  well  as  of  our  souls. 

So  patient  investigation  will  show  that  no  doctrine 
— if  it  be  rightly  maintained — is  without  a  bearing 
on  conduct.  False  and  imperfect  doctrines  will  and 
must  result  in  lives  faulty  and  maimed  which  might 
have  been  noble  and  complete.  The  full  Christian 
doctrine  produces  a  full  moral  life.  If  it  be  trans- 
lated into  action  it  is  an  inexhaustible  spring  of 
strength.  Dogma  is  necessary  because  dogma  rightly 
applied  is  life.  The  man  who  believes  in  God  must 
put  his  life  down  upon  his  faith.  "The  thing  for 
which  the  Christian  exists  is  to  make  it  easier  for 
others  to  believe  in  God.  He  exists  in  order  to  verify 
God  to  his  kindred,  his  neighbors,  and  to  all  mankind, 
to  make  God's  goodness  and  wisdom  manifest,  through 
his  life,  to  his  fellow  men." 

Indeed  it  is  not  the  preaching  of  dogma  to  which 
men  object,  it  is  the  exaggerated  dogmatic  spirit. 
There  is  a  wide  difference  between  dogma  and  dog- 
matism— the  one  broad,  sane,  reasonable,  insisted  on 
as  the  only  safe  foundation  of  helpful,  warm-hearted 
service;  the  other  narrow  and  sectarian,  often  dis- 
torting the  truth  by  unduly  emphasizing  some  one 
principle  of  the  faith  at  the  expense  of  much  else  that 
is  equally  true  and  important.  It  is  dogmatism  that 
arouses  opposition  and  dislike — that  fashion  of 
presenting  doctrine  with  sledge-hammer  blows,  or 
cramming  it  down  men's  throats,  or  insisting  upon  it 


14  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

for  its  own  sake  with  little  or  no  effort  to  prove  its 
necessity  or  its  usefulness. 

This  book  then  is  more  than  a  manual  of  instruc- 
tion. It  is  an  effort  to  state  Christian  truth  in  a 
practical  and  reasonable  way.  Above  everything  else, 
it  means  always  to  show,  either  explicitly  or  im- 
plicitly, that  in  the  full  acceptance  of  Christian  truth 
lie  the  richest  possibilities  of  life. 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  15 


II. 
WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD 

THERE  is  no  clear,  clean-cut  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God.  There  is,  of  course,  probable  proof, 
moral  certainty,  but  there  is  no  demonstrative  proof. 
Belief  in  God  is  a  matter  of  faith,  not  of  intellectual 
assurance.  On  the  whole,  however,  most  of  us  are 
sure  of  God.  Men  are  naturally  predisposed  to  belief 
in  Him.  Instinctively  they  trust  conscience  and 
listen  to  the  voice  of  the  heart.  One  of  the  strongest 
arguments  for  the  existence  of  God  is  this  instinctive 
belief  of  the  race  that  He  does  exist — we  call  it  the 
argumentum  consensus  gentium  when  we  wish  to  ap- 
pear learned.  But  this  book  is  for  plain,  practical 
people  who  do  not  care  whether  we  are  scholars  or 
not,  so  long  as  we  talk  common  sense.  To  most  men 
it  is  unthinkable  that  there  is  no  God  and  the  fact 
that  they  all  think  alike  about  it  is  a  strong  argument, 
whether  they  know  what  name  to  give  it  or  not. 

Probably  the  biggest  argument  against  God's  ex- 
istence as  a  supreme  moral  governor  over  a  universe 
He  has  made  is  the  presence  of  evil  in  the  world.  We 
cannot  understand  why,  if  there  is  a  God,  He  did  not 


16  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

make  the  world  good  and  keep  it  good;  or,  if  that 
were  impossible,  why  He  permits  evil  to  go  so  long 
unpunished.  How  many  times,  during  the  Great 
War,  that  question  went  up  from  men's  hearts  in 
passionate  protest  against  evil! 

Yet  the  very  thing  within  me  which  demands 
God's  intervention  and  asks  that  He  scourge  evil  from 
the  earth  is  proof  of  the  God  whose  existence  and 
whose  goodness  I  am  tempted  to  doubt.  Whence 
came  that  mysterious  voice  of  conscience  ?  Where  do 
I  get  my  standards  of  right  and  wrong?  Does  not 
the  moral  law,  as  of  necessity,  demand  a  Moral  Law 
Giver?  I  know,  too,  that  there  is  an  unchangeable 
law  of  happiness,  a  real  connection  between  joy  and 
goodness,  between  moral  misery  and  sin.  How  comes 
it  that  I  cannot  be  content  when  I  know  that  I  am 
disregarding  the  inner  voice  ?  Conscience  itself  cries 
out  that  there  is  a  God. 

The  real  strength  of  the  argument  for  God's  ex- 
istence— ^the  thing  which  makes  us  call  it  moral  proof, 
even  if  it  be  not  demonstrated  certainty — is  that  it  is 
a  converging  argument.  So  many  roads  all  lead  to 
the  same  place ;  so  many  signs  all  point  the  same  way. 
Suppose  we  take  some  of  these  converging  proofs,  one 
by  one,  in  a  plain,  practical,  common-sense  way. 

An  incident  is  related  of  an  eminent  astronomer 
which  shows  how  men,  in  the  name  of  reason,  are 
guilty  often  of  the  most  irrational  conduct.  The 
great  scientist  had  a  friend  who  strenuously  denied 
the  existence  and  power  of  God.     The  astronomer  had 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  17 

with  much  care  constructed  a  concave  in  miniature, 
upon  which  he  represented  all  the  planets  and  stars 
in  their  places,  together  with  their  evolutions  and 
courses.  One  day  this  friend  came  to  see  him,  and 
noticing  the  ingenious  piece  of  work,  asked,  "Who 
made  that  ?" 

"Who  made  it  ?"  repeated  the  astronomer.  "Why, 
nobody ;  it  came  by  chance." 

"Nonsense !"  said  his  friend.  "Really,  who  made 
it?" 

"Nobody,"  came  the  reply  again.  "It  came  by 
chance,  I  tell  you." 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  was  now  the  response,  in  irri- 
tation. "Someone  must  have  made  it.  Why  don't 
you  tell  me  who  it  was?" 

Then  the  astronomer,  turning  to  his  friend,  said : 
"This  poor  miniature  which  I  have  made  to  represent 
what  God  has  created  in  the  universe  you  say  cannot 
have  arisen  from  an  irresponsible  cause ;  and  yet  you 
tell  me  that  the  wonderful  and  mighty  works  around 
and  above  us  are  a  mere  fortuitous  combination  of 
atoms.     How  do  you  explain  your  inconsistency?" 

The  anecdote  will  illustrate  one  of  the  arguments 
that  convince  us  of  the  existence  of  a  supreme  Cre- 
ator and  Ruler  of  the  universe.  Every  effect  must 
have  had  an  adequate  cause,  and  every  design  must 
have  had  a  designer.  Were  I  to  find  a  watch,  wonder- 
fully calculated  to  fulfil  the  evident  purpose  of  its 
manufacture,  it  would  be  absurd  for  me  to  suppose, 
just  because  I  could  not  see  the  maker  of  it,  that  it 
came  into  existence  by  a  mere  chance,  that  somehow 


18  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  various  parts  accidentally  fell  together  and  fitted 
into  each  other  with  perfect  correspondence  and  by  a 
fortunate  coincidence  were  able  to  mark  the  passage 
of  time.  Seeing  the  watch,  noticing  the  evident  de- 
sign in  its  various  parts  and  observing  the  precision 
with  which  the  mechanism  does  the  thing  it  was 
manifestly  intended  to  do,  I  cannot  but  say :  Surely 
this  thing  had  a  maker.  It  is  not  by  a  lucky  chance 
that  the  parts  have  come  together  and  can  do  what  I 
see  them  doing ;  someone  designed  it  to  do  this ;  some- 
one made  it  so  that  it  would  accomplish  that  for 
which  it  was  designed.  In  other  words,  when  I  see  a 
watch  I  know  that  there  must  have  been  a  watch- 
maker. 

Now,  in  something  the  same  way,  when  I  look  at 
the  world  about  me,  when  I  see  its  manifold  harmony 
of  design,  when  I  realize  how  perfectly  it  fulfils  that 
design,  I  say  again:  This  also  must  have  had  a 
Maker;  some  One  must  have  brought  it  into  being; 
some  One  must  be  responsible  for  all  its  wonderful 
perfection  of  movement,  its  correspondence  of  part 
with  part,  its  harmony  of  action  with  action. 

If  I  am  impelled  to  this  belief  when  I  think  of 
the  universe  as  a  whole,  much  more  am  I  forced  to  it 
when  I  examine  in  detail  some  one  of  its  myriads  of 
marvels.  Take,  for  example,  the  human  eye.  Could 
anything  be  more  exactly  fitted  to  fulfil  the  function 
of  sight  ?  Think  for  a  moment  of  the  retina,  which 
receives  the  impressions  from  without.  It  is  made  up 
of  numerous  tissues,  forming  a  sort  of  mosaic,  one 
square  inch  of  which  receives  twenty  million  impres- 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  19 

sions,  while  sixty  million  millions  of  light  vibrations 
enter  into  it  every  second  of  time.  Each  ray  must 
act  upon  but  one  part  of  the  retina;  for  unless  there 
were  some  such  special  arrangement  there  would  be 
no  image  formed,  any  more  than  the  light  entering 
through  an  open  window  forms  a  picture.  Think, 
again,  of  the  functions  of  the  cornea,  or  of  the 
aqueous  and  vitreous  humors,  or  notice  the  external 
parts  of  the  organ:  the  eyebrows  are  sponges  which 
catch  the  moisture  and  dust  from  the  forehead;  the 
eyelids  are  a  protection  against  hostile  matter;  the 
lashes  are  fans,  to  keep  away  dirt  and  insects.  And 
where  was  the  eye  made  ?  when  ?  how  ?  It  was  formed 
in  the  maternal  womb,  long  before  it  could  be  put 
to  use,  wholly  separated  by  solid  barriers  from  the 
external  world.  Without  those  walls  was  light ;  with- 
in was  forming  an  organ  to  perceive  the  light.  It  is 
as  if  in  a  dark  cellar  a  blind  workman  should  fashion 
a  key  to  a  complicated  lock  outside.  Now  consider 
that  the  eye  is  but  one  of  a  million  wonderful  things 
that  go  to  make  up  this  wonderful  world,  and  you 
will  see  why  we  are  compelled  to  believe  that  the 
universe  did  not  come  by  chance:  it  was  designed 
and  created,  and  its  Creator  must  be  an  intelligent 
Being,  of  infinite  wisdom  and  power. 

Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  such  scientific 
theories  as,  for  instance,  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
evolution  would  invalidate  this  argument.  For  Dar- 
winism is  merely  an  explanation  of  how  things  be- 
came what  they  are,  not  necessarily  a  denial  that 
there  is  a  God  who  gave  them  their  origin  and  made 


20  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

them  capable  of  progressing  from  a  simple  beginning 
into  a  richer,  fuller  harmony  and  growth. 

The  word  evolution  means  an  "unfolding"  and 
the  evolutionary  theory  tells  how  different  forms  of 
animal  and  vegetable  life  have  come  from  other 
forms  already  in  existence.  We  are  not  told,  however, 
anything  about  the  ©riginal  germ  of  matter  from 
which  these  various  forms  have  been  evolved.  There 
must  have  been  some  bit  of  protoplasm  to  begin  with 
and  it  must  have  been  endued  with  life  or  it  could 
not  have  developed  into  all  its  succeeding  forms. 
How,  then,  did  that  speck  of  protoplasm  come  into 
being  ?  Whence  came  the  life  energy  which  has  since 
been  displayed  in  the  things  that  have  come  from  it  ? 
If  God  created  the  original  germ  and  gave  it  the 
spark  of  life.  He  is  the  Creator  of  everything  that 
has  sprung  out  of  it,  no  matter  how  the  process  of  de- 
velopment was  carried  on,  or  what  forces  have  affected 
succeeding  forms  of  life  that  are  traced  back  to  this 
original. 

Evolutionists  themselves  will  grant  this.  Herbert 
Spencer,  for  example,  says  that  we  know  nothing  of 
the  beginning  of  the  universe  and  that  "the  produc- 
tion of  matter  out  of  nothing  is  the  real  mystery."  ^ 

Darwin,  too,  has  placed  on  record  in  his  Life  and 
Letters  his  belief  that  "the  theory  of  evolution  is  quite 
compatible  with  the  belief  in  a  God."  Asa  Gray,  the 
great  botanist,  spoke  of  himself  as  "one  who  is  scien- 
tifically, and  in  his  own  fashion,  a  Darwinian;  philo- 


First  Principles,  p.  34. 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  21 

sophically  a  convinced  theist,  and  religiously  an 
accepter  of  the  creed  commonly  called  the  Nicene  as 
the  expression  of  the  Christian  faith." 

Let  us  take  an  example  to  show  the  reasonable- 
ness of  this  position.  We  have  just  used  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  wonder  of  God^s  universe  the  existence 
of  the  human  eye.  If  now  it  is  discovered  that  this 
marvellous  sight-mechanism  was  not  formed  with  all 
its  present  properties,  but  was  originally  a  membrane 
so  made  that  it  has  developed  into  an  eye,  does  that 
make  the  old  argument  antiquated  and  obsolete  ?  Not 
at  all — the  wonder  seems  even  greater  when  we  ask, 
What  must  He  be  who  could  endow  a  simple  mem- 
brane with  such  possibilities  of  change?  Is  Paley's 
old  example  of  design  in  the  watch  (which  we  used 
above)  any  the  less  valid,  if  we  discover  that  instead 
of  being  made  at  once  and  coming  from  the  hand  of 
the  manufacturer,  the  watch  was  but  a  bit  of  steel 
which  the  maker  endowed  with  such  properties  that 
in  time  it  was  hound  to  grow  into  a  watch?  God, 
moreover,  not  merely  gave  the  original  impulse,  but 
was  active  in  the  work  throughout  its  whole  progress 
— a  Creator  who  works  from  end  to  end  in  His  crea- 
tion and  in  every  step  of  the  onward  progress  shows 
His  presence  in  the  design  and  purpose  everywhere 
manifested.  Mysteries  only  multiply  if  we  try  to 
conceive  of  a  Creator  who  works  in  this  fashion, 
quietly,  slowly,  and  unseen. 

Speaking  of  the  mystery  of  the  Godhead,  one  is 
reminded  of  the  argument  from  the  beauty  as  well  as 
the  utility  of  this  world  of  ours.     Beauty,  like  truth, 


22  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

is  a  reality  outside  of  ourselves.  It  must  have  its 
seat  somewhere — and  the  existence  of  relative  beauty 
here  implies  perfect  beauty  in  Him  who  made  this 
earthly  splendor.  Finite  beauty  implies  infinite 
beauty;  the  beautiful  landscape,  cloud,  sunset,  face, 
figure,  are  but  drops  in  the  great  ocean  of  beauty. 

Once  more,  beauty  has  a  strange,  mystic  power; 
we  cannot  explain  it,  nobody  can  explain  it.  And  so 
it  prepares  us  for  the  profound  mysteriousness  of 
God,  from  whom  all  beauty  comes.  Clouds  and  dark- 
ness are  round  about  Him.  With  God,  and  the 
thoughts  of  God,  there  is  always  for  us  an  inherent, 
unfathomable,  spirit-stirring  mystery. 

If  the  world  that  lies  about  us,  in  its  usefulness 
and  its  aesthetic  charm,  tells  us  of  a  Creator  of  in- 
finite wisdom,  boundless  power,  and  deepest  mystery, 
the  world  that  lies  within  us  tells  of  the  personal 
existence  and  moral  grandeur  of  this  infinite  Creator. 
When  I  look  within,  at  myself,  I  know  that  I  am  a 
person,  a  being  with  a  separate  existence;  I  am  my- 
self and  am  quite  distinct  from  all  that  lies  outside 
of  this  self.  Moreover,  I  am  a  person  who  distin- 
guishes between  right  and  wrong;  I  have  an  innate 
sense  of  goodness ;  I  know  that  there  is  righteousness 
and  unrighteousness  and  I  know  that  I  am  a  free 
moral  being  who  can  choose  between  them.  There  is 
no  force  upon  earth  superior  to  human  personality. 
Because  this  is  so  I  know  that  in  God  must  be  found 
something  to  correspond  to  personality  in  myself,  or 
else  God  is  not  Almighty;  man  is  greater  than  He. 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  GOD  23 

To  put  it  briefly,  because  I  am  a  person  I  know  that 
God  must  be  a  Person  as  well.  He  who  created  can- 
not be  less  than  the  infinite  expression  of  His  own 
creation,  and  because  I  am  what  I  am  God  must  be 
something  like  me,  only  in  Him  the  likeness  is  carried 
to  perfection.  Personality  in  God  does  not  mean  that 
He  is  a  sort  of  enlarged  man,  as  some  people  in  their 
crude  way  seem  to  think.  It  means  rather,  that  God 
is  more  than  mere  energy  or  force;  He  is  a  Being 
who  thinks,  plans,  wills,  and  acts — a  Being  who  can 
be  known  as  well  as  a  Presence  to  be  felt. 

The  personality  of  God  is  of  the  very  essence  of 
religion.  If  He  were  nothing  more  than  an  imper- 
sonal energy,  I  could  not  pray  to  Him,  I  could  not 
obey  Him,  I  could  not  love  Him;  we  cannot  love, 
obey,  pray  to  that  which  is  only  a  neuter  pronoun — It. 

For  these  reasons,  then,  I  believe  in  God.  I  be- 
lieve He  made  the  world  and  all  that  is  therein;  it 
must  have  come  from  some  hand,  and  I  believe  it 
came  from  His.  I  believe  that  He  is  a  Person,  be- 
cause I  know  that  I  am,  and  He  is  infinitely  greater 
than  I.  By  His  Personality  I  do  not  necessarily 
mean  exactly  what  the  word  means  as  applied  to 
human  beings;  I  mean  that  in  God  there  is  that 
which  corresponds  to  personality  in  men — corresponds 
to  it,  but  is  infinitely  greater.  I  believe  also  that 
this  Divine  Person  is  a  Moral  Being,  because  He  gave 
me  my  own  sense  of  morality. 

I  believe  in  God,  and  I  cannot  get  away  from  this 
belief.     The  world  within  and  the  world  without,  the 


24  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

voice  of  conscience  and  the  voice  of  nature,  tell  me 
that  there  is  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker 
of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things  visible  and 
invisible.  I  believe,  and  even  though  my  belief  do  not 
rest  on  absolute  proof,  I  keep  on  believing  because  my 
own  heart  tells  me  what  other  hearts  have  also 
learned — I  believe  in  God  because  I  need  Him  and  I 
cannot  do  without  Him. 


THE  HOLY  TRINITY 


III. 

THE  HOLY  TRINITY 

yyy  OST  people  seem  to  tliink  that  when  they  have 
/  \  learned  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  God  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  comes  as  an  addi- 
tional demand  on  their  faith.  They  regard  it  as 
comparatively  simple  to  believe  in  a  Supreme  Being, 
but  when  they  are  asked  to  believe  that  in  the  unity 
of  the  Godhead  there  are  three  Divine  Persons  they 
regard  this  as  a  new  burden  on  an  already  over- 
burdened creed. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  is  exceedingly 
difficult  for  the  human  reason,  in  any  case,  to  gain  a 
satisfactory  conception  of  the  inner  life,  the  essence 
of  the  Godhead ;  the  thought  is  one  beyond  the  grasp 
of  finite  intelligence.  We  see  this  the  moment  we 
think  of  any  of  God's  attributes.  What  can  we  under- 
stand, for  example,  of  His  self-existence,  a  life  with- 
out source  or  origin,  a  great  First  Cause?  Or  try 
to  conceive  of  His  eternity,  without  beginning  of  days 
or  end  of  years ;  or  of  His  omnipotence,  a  power  which 
is  almighty,  yet  exercised  in  accordance  with  definite 
laws  and  subject  to  moral  limitations;  or  of  His 


26  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

omnipresence,  by  which  we  mean  not  simply  that  His 
influence  is  everywhere  felt,  but  that  He  Himself  is 
in  every  part  of  His  universe,  that  all  of  God,  so  to 
speak,  is  everywhere  at  one  and  the  same  time ;  or  of 
His  omniscience,  including  in  this  the  thought  of 
God's  foreknowledge  and  man's  free  will.  The  idea 
of  God  whether  as  Trinity  or  Unity  is  utterly  beyond 
our  comprehension. 

Yet,  while  this  is  true,  it  may  be  possible — I  am 
quite  sure,  indeed,  that  it  is  possible — to  show  that 
belief  in  God  as  Three  Persons  is  much  easier  than 
acceptance  of  the  Unitarian  conception  of  the  deity 
as  a  monad.  Before  we  touch  upon  that,  though, 
it  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  some  hints  in 
nature,  which  prepare  us  for  the  Trinitarian  concep- 
tion. Not  that  these  could  ever  have  taught  us  the 
truth  about  God,  had  it  not  been  fully  revealed  by 
Christ;  but  such  types  and  figures  will  prepare  us 
for  the  substance  and  reality,  of  which  they  are  but 
shadows. 

An  illustration  of  the  Trinity,  unsatisfactory  in- 
deed, but  an  illustration,  nevertheless,  is  found  in 
the  sunbeam.  It  is  absolutely  one — we  call  it  a  beam 
of  light — and  yet  in  that  unity  there  are  three  en- 
tities, light  and  heat  and  actinism.  They  exist  to- 
gether, yet  they  are  three.  They  are  properties  that 
can  be  distinguished,  yet  they  are  one.  All  of  the 
sunbeam  is  light,  all  is  heat,  all  is  chemical  action, 
and  yet  there  are  not  three  sunbeams,  but  one.  Or, 
consider  the  human  soul.  It  has  three  functions, 
knowing,  feeling,  willing.     We  cannot  exercise  these 


THE  HOLY  TRINITY  27 

functions  apart.  We  cannot  know  a  thing  without 
having  some  feeling  or  desire  about  it,  however  slight, 
or  without  acting,  or  declining  to  take  action,  in 
accordance  with  the  desire;  we  cannot  act  about  a 
thing,  without  the  wish  preceding  the  act ;  we  cannot 
have  the  wish  without  some  previous  knowledge  of 
the  thing.  The  human  soul  is  absolutely  one,  and 
yet  it  is  threefold.  Since  man  is  made  in  the  image 
of  God,  we  need  not  be  surprised  when  Scripture  tells 
us  that  something  of  the  same  kind,  though  higher 
and  more  mysterious,  is  true  of  God. 

The  mysteries  of  nature,  too,  may  prepare  us  for 
the  mystery  of  God's  existence.  Here  we  have  on 
our  side  so  good  an  authority  as  the  great  scientist 
Huxley  himself,  who,  though  he  was  not  a  believer  in 
theism  or  in  Christianity,  based  his  position  purely 
on  the  question  of  evidence  and  not  on  the  difficulty 
of  the  revelation.  On  this  very  subject,  in  a  letter  to 
Bishop  (then  Canon)  Gore,  some  years  ago,  he  said: 
"I  have  not  the  slightest  objection  to  offer  a  priori 
[that  is,  on  grounds  of  reason]  to  all  the  propositions 
of  the  three  creeds  of  Christendom.  The  mysteries  of 
the  Church  are  child's  play  compared  with  the  mys- 
teries of  Nature.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  not 
more  puzzling  than  the  necessary  antinomies  [that  is, 
contradictions]  of  physical  speculation."  In  other 
words,  as  Bishop  Gore  says  in  commenting  on  the 
letter,  a  man  like  Huxley  would  recognize  that  human 
thought  may  well  find  itself  baffled  to  conceive  about 
what  it  still  must  believe.  As  an  example,  he  re- 
minds us  of  what  scientific  writers  say  about  the  ether 


28  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

which  is  the  vehicle  of  heat  and  light.  It  is  described 
by  physicists  as  diffused  through  all  space,  but  though 
it  is  everywhere  it  cannot  be  discovered  anywhere  and 
when  its  properties  are  examined  it  seems  to  be  at 
once  a  solid  and  a  fluid.  This  is  mysterious  indeed, 
it  passes  our  limited  power  of  imagination ;  but  never- 
theless it  appears  to  be  true  and  is  regarded  as  true 
by  the  scientific  world." 

One  who  finds  it  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  Trinity 
in  Unity  might  well  approach  the  subject,  then,  by 
thinking  first  of  the  mysteries  of  nature  and  so  pre- 
paring himself  for  the  mysteries  of  the  faith.  Or  he 
might  contemplate  his  own  being — ^how  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  he  is  made — lest  he  grow  impatient  at 
understanding  so  little  of  the  infinite. 

It  was  said  just  now  that  it  is  easier  to  believe  in 
God  as  three  Persons  than  as  one.  Try  to  think  it 
out,  for  example,  in  connection  with  the  very  idea 
of  personality.  We  know  that  God  has  what  corre- 
sponds to  though  it  transcends  personality,  because 
He  cannot  be  less  than  we  are,  whom  He  created — 
and  personality  is  our  greatest  attribute.  Whatever 
we  mean  by  the  personality  of  God  is  infinitely  higher 
than  what  we  mean  by  personality  in  men,  but  it  is 
something  that  must  run  on  similar  lines.  How, 
then,  could  there  be  the  fullest  and  most  complete  per- 
sonality in  God  if  He  were  a  lone  and  solitary  unit, 
without   anything   corresponding   to   personal    com- 


Gore:     The  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God. 


THE  HOLY  TRINITY  29 

munion  and  intercourse?  Imagine  a  God,  seated 
alone  in  desolate  grandeur,  and  then  think  of  the 
Christian  conception  of  God,  in  the  relation  of 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  showing  perfection  of  life, 
fulness  of  movement,  intercourse,  action,  reciprocal 
love,  and  you  will  see  what  we  mean  by  saying  that 
such  a  God  is  easier  to  conceive  of  than  the  solitary, 
cold  unit  of  those  who  reject  Trinitarian  teaching. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Unitarians  hesitate  at  the  con- 
ception of  God  prior  to  the  creation  of  the  world, 
because  of  these  very  difficulties. 

Or  take  the  thought  of  God  as  love.  If  He  is 
love,  there  must  be  something  on  which  He  is  to 
expend  His  love.  What  or  whom  did  He  love,  then, 
before  the  creation  of  the  world?  Was  His  love  in- 
finitely expended  upon  Himself  ?  We  cannot  but  feel 
that  such  a  thought  is  shocking  to  our  best  instincts 
— a  monstrous  selfishness  is  the  only  picture  the 
language  suggests.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  different  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  then  one  Divine 
Person  may  lavish  the  infinite  wealth  of  His  love 
upon  another  Divine  Person  who  is  infinitely  worthy 
to  receive  and  return  it,  and  we  have  a  picture  of  God 
as  perfect  love,  love  in  Himself,  as  of  the  very  essence 
of  His  being,  and  apart  from  any  relations  with  a 
created  world. 

Once  more,  if  God  is  love,  how  are  we  to  reconcile 
all  that  is  seemingly  hard  and  harsh  and  unlovely  in 
the  world  with  His  infinite  affection?  May  we  not 
say  without  contradiction  that  it  is  absolutely  im- 
possible  to   make   the   needed   reconciliation   except 


30  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

through  belief  in  the  divinity  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Son  who  was  manifested  in  human  life  to 
show  in  that  life  just  what  the  Father  is?  The 
doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity  carries  with  it,  we  need 
hardly  explain,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 

Of  course,  while  all  this  is  true,  we  could  never 
of  ourselves  have  discovered  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity;  we  are  dependent  upon  revelation  and  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  for  our  knowledge  of  it.  As 
to  Scripture,  this  much  may  be  said,  that  if  the 
doctrine  is  not  categorically  declared  there  it  is  neces- 
sarily and  plainly  implied.  We  find  clearly  set  forth 
the  divinity  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Spirit ;  we  have  their  equality  declared ;  we  have  them 
united  under  the  one  Name  in  the  baptismal  formula. 
If  it  remained  for  the  Church  to  choose  the  words  by 
which  the  mysterious  fact  of  their  union  should  be 
expressed,  she  was  compelled  to  do  so  by  what  she  had 
experienced  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Spirit.  From  the 
very  beginning  Christ  had  been  worshipped  as  God 
and  the  formal  statement  that  He  was  what  He  had 
always  been  accepted  to  be  was  a  step  made  necessary 
by  Christian  experience.  From  the  beginning  the 
Holy  Spirit  had  also  been  given  divine  honor,  had 
been  worshipped  as  on  an  equality  with  the  Father 
who  sent  Him.  When  the  assaults  of  heresy  made 
some  statement  of  the  facts  necessary,  the  Church  was 
but  declaring  in  careful  language  what  had  long  been 
accepted  in  thought.  Indeed,  it  is  necessary  to  bear 
in  mind  always  that  the  Church  never  set  forth  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  merely  as  a  shibboleth  by 


THE  HOLY  TRINITY  31 

which  to  exclude  all  who  could  not  use  the  test  word 
aright.  She  found,  rather,  men  denying  what  she 
held  most  sacred,  refusing  to  accept  what  had  been 
instinctively  believed,  and  she  was  forced  to  define  in 
order  to  clarify  her  own  faith. 

Abstruse  as  all  this  may  sound,  it  will  not  be 
wasted  time  to  try  to  think  it  out.  It  will  be  good 
for  us  to  realize  how  little  we  are,  when  we  come  to 
place  ourselves  in  contemplation  of  what  is  infinite 
and  eternal.  The  humbling  process  will  be  the  best 
possible  exercise  of  devotion.  Do  you  assure  me  that 
it  would  be  far  wiser  to  devote  our  energy  to  the  pro- 
motion of  practical  religion?  "Practical  religion! 
Ah,  how  we  cheat  ourselves  with  phrases,"  says  the 
late  Dr.  Huntington.  "Show  me  the  man  whose  soul 
is  full  of  heavenly  imaginings,  who  dwells  largely 
among  things  not  seen,  whose  thoughts  often  take 
flight  from  the  edges  of  this  buying  and  selling  world, 
that  they  may  strike  out  into  the  pure  air  and  find 
rest  upon  the  wing  as  the  seabirds  do,  and  I  will  show 
you  one  who  will  make  the  best  of  neighbors,  the  most 
public-spirited  of  citizens,  the  gentlest,  kindest, 
truest,  least  arrogant  of  men.  For,  after  all,  the 
great  thing  in  ^practical  religion'  is  to  sink  self;  and 
in  this  task  we  succeed  best  at  moments  when  most 
we  realize  the  littleness  of  man,  the  majesty  of  the 
Almighty." 

Surely,  thought  about  the  Trinity  is  of  impor- 
tance, then,  in  the  religious  life.  It  becomes  of  the 
greater  value  when  we  realize  that  this  conception  of 


32  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

God  is  the  only  conception  which  shows  Him  to  us  as 
eternally  productive,  all  sufficient  within  Himself, 
always  and  in  His  very  essence  a  God  of  love ;  that  it 
helps  us  both  to  think  about  Him  and  to  worship 
Him  with  intelligence  and  enables  us  to  recognize 
that  human  life  can  be  in  His  image  only  by  becoming 
continually  more  operative,  more  fruitful,  more  social. 
The  Trinitarian  may  well  challenge  his  Unitarian 
friends  to  a  comparison  of  the  two  beliefs.  As  he 
knows  already  that  the  Church's  doctrine  is  scriptural 
he  will  find  added  confidence  in  the  assurance  that  it 
is  more  reasonable  and,  best  of  all,  of  more  practical 
value  as  an  incentive  to  unselfish  living. 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  33 


IV. 

THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 

IT  would  be  very  interesting  if  we  could  print  here 
just  what  everybody  we  know  thinks  about  Christ. 
It  was  the  question  our  Lord  Himself  asked,  "What 
think  ye  of  Christ?''     "Whom  say  ye  that  I  am?" 

There  are  many  people  who  do  not  understand 
how  He  can  be  both  God  and  man  and  therefore 
flatly  deny  His  divinity.  If  you  were  to  ask  these 
people  just  exactly  what  they  do  believe  about  Him, 
you  would  find,  when  they  tried  to  put  their  thought 
into  some  positive  form,  that  it  was  not  positive  at 
all,  that  their  answers  would  be  most  vague  and  un- 
certain. They  will  not  accept  the  doctrine  that 
Christ  is  divine,  but  they  will  not  be  at  pains  to  dis- 
cover precisely  what  they  do  think  He  is.  Probably, 
if  you  were  to  pin  them  down  to  some  definite  an- 
swer, most  of  them  would  say  that  they  think  He 
was  a  good  man,  the  best  man  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Some  would  go  further,  and  tell  you  that  He 
was  divine  in  the  same  sense  in  which  all  men  are, 
though  in  greater  degree ;  that  is,  that  God  absolutely 
possessed  and  filled  His  whole  life.     But  He  is  not 


34  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

God,  they  will  add;  no,  Christ  was  a  good  man,  the 
best,  the  purest,  the  holiest,  the  most  unselfish  man 
that  ever  trod  this  earth,  but  He  was  not  God  in- 
carnate. 

Well,  let  us  see.  Suppose  some  religious  teacher 
were  to  stand  before  us  and  declare  himself  sent  by 
God  to  lead  us  to  a  fuller  knowledge  of  His  divine 
character.  Suppose  he  were  to  begin  his  work  by 
saying  that  we  are  all  of  earthly  origin,  while  he  was 
from  above.  Suppose  he  were  to  summon  us  to  do 
him  reverence.  Suppose  he  were  to  tell  us  that  he  was 
the  way,  the  truth,  the  life,  the  light  of  the  world, 
the  good  shepherd  of  souls.  Suppose  he  were  to  re- 
peat this  in  every  conceivable  form,  were  to  tell  us 
that  we  must  honor  him  as  we  honor  God,  that  we 
cannot  come  to  God  except  through  him,  that  he  and 
God  were  one,  that  if  we  believe  in  God  we  must 
believe  also  in  him,  that  if  we  do  not  love  him  it  will 
show  that  we  do  not  love  God. 

What  would  you  say  of  such  a  man?  You  could 
not  call  him  good.  You  would  declare  him  either  a 
lunatic  or  an  imposter.  No  religious  teacher  to-day 
would  dare  point  men  to  himself;  none  could  have 
any  influence  if  he  were  not  willing  to  acknowledge 
his  own  imperfections.  A  religious  teacher  may  say, 
"I  try,"  "I  think,"  "I  feel  sure,"  "I  hope,"  "I  be- 
lieve" ;  but  he  must  never  say,  "I  am."  A  sane  man 
who  spoke  of  himself  as  never  committing  sin  would 
be  consigned  at  once  to  oblivion  and  contempt. 

Now,  bearing  all  this  in  mind,  notice  our  Lord's 
self-assertion.  His  silence  as  to  any  moral  defect.  His 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  35 

intense  authoritativeness,  His  claim  of  co-equality 
with  the  Father,  His  assertion  that  He  is  essentially 
one  with  God,  His  call  to  men  to  make  Him  an  object 
of  faith  just  as  they  believe  in  God,  to  trust  in  Him 
as  they  trust  in  God,  to  honor  Him  as  they  honor  God, 
and  to  love  Him  because  to  do  so  is  a  necessary  mark 
of  the  children  of  God.  See  how  He  declares  that  no 
rival  claim  however  strong,  no  natural  affection  how- 
ever deep,  may  interpose  between  Him  and  the  soul 
of  His  follower.  "He  that  loveth  father  or  mother 
more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me ;  and  he  that  loveth 
son  or  daughter  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me." 
See  how  He  asserts  His  absolute  sinlessness,  challeng- 
ing men  to  find  any  spot  in  Him.  "Which  of  you 
convinceth  Me  of  sin?"  Kead  scores  of  passages 
where  Christ  makes  such  claims  and  then  ask  if  He 
can  be  sincere,  unselfish,  humble,  and  good,  if  He  is 
not  more  than  man.  As  St.  Augustine  put  it, 
"Christ,  if  He  is  not  God,  is  not  a  good  man." 

Consider,  too,  that  these  divine  claims  of  Jesus 
are  what  brought  about  His  death.  Why  was  He 
crucified?  Mcodemus  was  not  simply  speaking  for 
himself,  he  probably  expressed  the  sentiment  of  many 
of  his  co-religionists,  when  he  said,  "We  know  that 
Thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God."  But  just  be- 
cause Jesus  was  not  content  with  that  admission, 
because  He  claimed  to  be  more  than  a  divinely  com- 
missioned teacher  and  asserted  His  equality  with  the 
Father,  He  was  taken  to  judgment  and  to  death.  He 
was  crucified  on  the  charge  of  blasphemy,  because  He 
made  Himself  equal  with  God.     Was  He,  then,  in 


36  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

making  this  claim,  an  ignorant,  half -crazed  fanatic? 
Either  that ;  or  else  He  was  a  thoroughly  unprincipled 
man;  or  else  He  was  what  He  claimed  to  be.  He  was 
God. 

Does  one  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  Christ  is 
God  in  the  flesh?  Well,  it  is  harder  to  believe  that 
He  is  truly  a  good  man  if  He  is  anything  less  than 
this.  "It  is  easier,"  says  Dr.  Liddon,^  "for  a  good 
man  to  believe  that  in  a  world  where  he  is  encom- 
passed by  mysteries,  where  his  own  being  itself  is  a 
consummate  mystery,  the  Moral  Author  of  the  won- 
ders around  him  should  for  great  moral  purposes  have 
taken  to  Himself  a  created  form,  than  that  the  one 
Human  Life  which  realizes  the  idea  of  humanity, 
the  one  Man  who  is  at  once  perfect  strength  and  per- 
fect tenderness,  the  one  Pattern  of  our  race  in  whom 
its  virtues  are  combined,  and  from  whom  its  vices  are 
eliminated,  should  have  been  guilty,  when  speaking 
about  Himself,  of  an  arrogance,  of  a  self-seeking,  of 
an  insincerity,  which  if  admitted  must  justly  degrade 
Him  far  below  the  moral  level  of  millions  among  His 
unhonored  worshippers.  Thus  our  Lord's  human 
glory  fades  before  our  eyes  when  we  attempt  to  con- 
ceive of  it  apart  from  the  truth  of  His  divinity.  He 
is  only  perfect  as  Man,  because  He  is  truly  God.  If 
He  is  not  God,  He  is  not  an  humble  or  an  unselfish 


Or  think,  once  more,  of  Christ's  claim  to  judge 
the  world.     "The  Father  judge th  no  man,  but  hath 

^  The  Divinity  of  Our  Lord,  lecture  iv. 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  37 

committed  all  judgment  unto  the  Son:  that  all  men 
should  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father." 
We  know  what  it  means  to  sit  in  judgment  over  one 
of  our  fellows.  It  means,  if  we  are  to  give  a  perfect 
judgment,  that  we  must  know  his  whole  life,  read 
every  thought,  consider  every  word,  be  acquainted 
with  every  act.  It  means  that  we  must  be  able  to 
read  his  heart  like  an  open  book,  that  we  must  have 
thorough  understanding  of  all  his  motives;  for 
motives  as  well  as  actions  must  be  taken  under  con- 
sideration. It  means  that  we  must  have  perfect 
knowledge  of  all  his  past,  his  inherited  tendencies, 
his  early  environment,  his  peculiar  temptations,  the 
strength  of  his  resistance  of  them.  We  must  be  able 
to  look  into  his  eyes,  and  read  him  through  and 
through. 

Consider,  therefore,  what  Christ  claims  when  He 
asserts  that  to  Him  it  is  given  to  know  in  this  way 
not  one  man  but  all  men,  not  one  soul  but  every 
soul  that  ever  faced  sin,  every  man,  woman,  or  child 
who  is  now  on  earth,  or  ever  came  into  the  world,  or 
is  yet  to  be  born,  to  live  and  work  and  love  and  pray 
and  struggle  here.  To  make  such  a  claim  is  to  de- 
clare one's  self  omniscient,  and  to  assert  one's  om- 
niscience is  to  call  one's  self  God.  Christ  did  make 
this  claim  and  we  come  back  again,  therefore,  to  the 
same  dilemma :  if  He  was  not  insane  or  deluded.  He 
was  either  the  incarnation  of  wickedness,  or  He  was 
good.  If  He  was  good  He  was  also  God,  as  He 
claimed  to  be. 


38  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

In  all  this,  let  it  be  noted,  we  are  but  touching 
the  border  ground  of  the  proof  of  Christ's  divinity. 
We  have  to  remember  not  only  what  He  said  about 
Himself,  but  what  others  said  of  Him.  Those  men 
who  companied  wdth  Him  for  the  few  years  of  His 
ministry  came  to  think  of  Him  and  speak  of  Him  in 
ways  that  are  consistent  only  with  the  most  thorough- 
going belief  in  His  deity.  What,  for  example,  did 
St.  Thomas  mean,  when  he  fell  at  His  feet  and  cried, 
"My  Lord  and  my  God"  ?  What  did  St.  Paul  mean, 
when  he  said,  "In  Him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily"?  What  did  he  mean,  again, 
when  he  said  of  Christ  that  "being  in  the  form  of 
God,  He  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God, 
but  made  Himself  of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon 
Him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and  was  made  in  the 
likeness  of  men"?  What  did  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  mean,  when  he  called  our 
Lord  Christ  "the  brightness"  of  the  Father's  "glory", 
and  "the  express  image  of  His  Person"?  What  did 
St.  John  mean,  when  he  called  Him  the  Word  of 
God,  and  said  that  "in  the  beginning  was  the  Word, 
and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God. 
And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us"  ? 
What  must  this  same  St.  John  have  believed,  when, 
his  soul  thrilling  at  the  thought  of  the  wonderful 
thing  that  had  come  into  his  life,  he  used  such  lan- 
guage as  this  of  his  Master  ?  Read  it :  "That  which 
was  from  the  beginning,  which  we  have  heard,  which 
we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which  we  have  looked 
upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled,  of  the  Word  of 


THE  DIVINITY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  39 

life;  that  which,  we  have  seen  and  heard  declare  we 
unto  you,  that  3^e  also  may  have  fellowship  with  us : 
and  truly  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father,  and  with 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ."  ^^We  know  that  the  Son  of 
God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us  an  understanding, 
that  we  may  know  Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are  in 
Him  that  is  true,  even  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.  This 
is  the  true  God,  and  eternal  life." 

What  did  they  mean,  and  what  did  they  believe? 
What  but  that  Jesus  our  Lord  was  in  truth  the  divine 
Son  of  the  Father?  And  what  can  we  believe  but 
just  what  they  did?  What  think  you  of  Christ? 
Do  the  Gospels  give  us  a  substantially  accurate  ac- 
count of  His  life  ?  And  did  His  disciples  know  Him  ? 
And  was  He  a  good  man?  And  if  so,  was  He  not 
also  God? 

Jesus  Christ  is  indeed  the  revelation  of  the 
Father;  we  really  know  God  only  as  He  is  manifest 
in  the  Son.  Apart  from  Christ,  God  is  as  it  were 
but  a  dim  idea,  a  vague  conception,  and  our  hearts 
cry  out  for  further  knowledge :  "Show  us  the  Father, 
and  it  sufficeth  us."  In  Christ,  and  through  Him, 
God  becomes  an  intense  reality :  "He  that  hath  seen 
Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 


40  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


V. 

THE  INCARNATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

IN  the  Nicene  Creed  we  say  that  we  ^TDelieve  in  one 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God 
.  .  .  who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  came 
down  from  heaven,  and  was  incarnate  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  Man." 

What  we  have  just  seen  about  our  Lord's  divine 
self-consciousness  forces  us  to  a  conviction  of  this 
truth.  So  it  was  with  the  early  disciples.  They 
went  about  with  Jesus  while  He  lived  on  earth,  and 
they  found  Him  to  be  perfect  man  in  everything  that 
pertains  to  human  nature.  Then  gradually,  as  they 
saw  the  daily  miracle  of  His  life  and  listened  to  His 
wonderful  words  and  saw  His  marvellous  works, 
they  came  to  the  conviction  that  He  was  also  perfect 
Gi3d;  and  this  belief,  but  half  formed  at  His  death, 
was  confirmed  in  His  resurrection,  through  which 
He  was  seen  as  Lord  of  life  and  victor  over  the  grave 
and  was  "declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  powe^'^ 
The  apostles  did  not  reason  out  the  Incarnation 
from  the  Godhead  downward;  they  reached  it  by 
a  natural  ascent  from  the  manhood  upward.     They 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  OUR  LORD  41 

saw  that  nothing  less  than  this  truth  could  explain 
all  that  they  had  learned,  as  their  eyes  gazed  upon 
and  their  hands  handled  the  Word  of  Life.  St. 
John's  Gospel,  which  was  written  to  give  the  record 
of  the  apostles'  faith,  traces  the  growth  of  this  con- 
viction, and  closes  (for  the  last  chapter  is  supple- 
mentary) with  the  cry  of  St.  Thomas,  kneeling  in 
penitence  and  adoring  faith  at  the  feet  of  his  Master, 
"My  Lord  and  my  God."  Christ's  first  disciples 
"came  to  believe  in  His  Godhead  through  their  ex- 
perience of  His  manhood;  and,  coming  so  to  believe, 
they  handed  on  their  faith  as  an  inheritance  to  the 
Christian  Church,  an  inheritance  which  the  record  of 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  the 
perpetual  experience  of  His  power  in  those  who  be- 
lieve, has  made  continually  more  credible."  ^ 

Christianity  is  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation. 
And  yet,  strangely  enough,  thousands  of  those  who 
profess  and  call  themselves  Christians  have  the 
vaguest  possible  notion  of  what  the  Incarnation 
means.  Let  us  try  to  state  the  doctrine.  Briefly,  it 
tells  us  that  according  to  the  Christian  faith  Jesus 
Christ  is  both  God  and  Man,  perfect  God  and  perfect 
Man  (that  is,  having  every  essential  element  of  both 
natures),  but  that  while  He  has  two  distinct  and 
perfect  natures  He  is  one  divine  Person.  A  simple 
illustration  will  help  to  a  clear  understanding  of  this 
central  truth  of  the  Christian  religion. 


^  Gore :  The  Creed  of  the  Christian. 


42  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Suppose  that  a  man,  for  love  of  some  of  the 
creatures  beneath  him,  were  permitted  to  become  one 
of  them.  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  a  man  had 
devoted  his  life  to  the  care  of  birds,  and  saw  that 
through  some  great  mistake  in  their  mode  of  life 
they  were  fast  dying  off.  Suppose  now  (though,  of 
course,  it  is  humanly  impossible)  that  he  could  be- 
come a  bird,  so  as  to  teach  birds  how  to  live.  He 
would  have  to  enter  into  their  nature  through  the 
ordinary  laws  by  which  their  life  begins ;  yet  he  would 
retain  his  human  personality ;  and,  having  become  one 
of  them,  he  would  still  be  able  to  see  all  things  from 
a  human  point  of  view.  With  his  man's  mind  he 
could  see  their  mistakes.  Through  the  nature  which 
he  held  in  common  with  them  he  could  teach  them  the 
remedy.  But  he  had  lived  long  before  he  became  one 
of  them,  and  he  still  remained  what  he  was  before, 
only  taking  up  their  nature  that  he  might  help  and 
teach  them  and  come  closer  to  them  than  before. 

So  Jesus  Christ  is  God.  He  had  lived  from  all 
eternity,  co-equal  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy 
Spirit.  At  the  Incarnation  He  entered  through  the 
womb  of  Mary  into  man's  nature.  He  saw  man  mis- 
taking the  meaning  of  life,  living  for  pleasure  or  sin, 
and  He  said,  I,  the  Son  of  God,  will  enter  into  man's 
nature ;  with  My  divine  mind  I  will  see  his  faults  and 
the  remedy;  through  the  nature  which  I  assume  I 
will  be  able  to  show  him  this  remedy. 

If  this  is  true,  then  it  is  also  true  that  when 
Jesus  Christ  does  an3rthing,  or  says  anything,  it  is 
God  who  is  speaking  or  acting.     Not  that  there  are 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  OUR  LORD  43 

two  persons  in  the  two  natures,  God  the  Son  and  the 
man  Jesus ;  it  is  the  one  Person,  the  Son,  the  Second 
Person  of  the  Trinity,  and  He  is  merely  translating 
the  life  of  God  into  our  ways  of  thinking  and  acting. 
When  an  infant  is  born,  a  new  person  comes  into  the 
world;  but  when  Jesus  Christ  was  born,  no  new  per- 
son entered  into  life.  It  was  the  same  Divine  Person 
who  had  lived  from  all  eternity  with  the  Father,  and 
now  took  a  new  nature  unto  Himself  and  lived  in 
that  nature,  manifesting  in  it  the  divine  truth  and 
beauty  that  were  His  before,  making  God  as  it  were 
visible  to  men,  and  living  His  new  life,  our  human 
life,  as  He  would  have  us  live  it.  No  man  had  seen 
God  at  any  time;  the  only-begotten  Son,  who  is  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  came  and  declared  Him — 
made  Him  known. 

Faith  in  the  incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  is  in 
no  way  dependent  upon  the  virgin  birth  of  our  Lord. 
We  learn  that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  exactly  as  the 
first  disciples  discovered  it,  by  living  with  Him  long 
enough  and  closely  enough  to  see  that  the  real  miracle 
is  the  continuous  miracle  of  His  life.  That  is  the 
method  of  approach  by  which,  in  the  last  chapter,  we 
came  to  the  fact  of  His  divinity.  Once  we  have 
arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  who  and  what  Jesus  Christ 
was,  belief  in  His  miraculous  birth  falls  into  place  as 
a  secondary  miracle.  We  believe  in  the  unique  birth 
because  we  believe  in  the  unique  Person.  In  other 
words,  if  Jesus  Christ  really  is  divine,  if  at  His  birth 
an  Eternal  and  Divine  Personality  entered  upon  a 


44  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

new  mode  of  existence  and  manifested  Himself  in 
human  form,  then  it  would  hardly  be  strange  or 
unreasonable  that  His  birth  should  be  unlike  other 
births.  The  fact  of  Jesus  Himself  is  so  unique  and 
miraculous  that  we  may  rightly  expect  the  method  of 
His  entrance  into  the  earthly  life  to  be  unique  and 
miraculous  also.  Face  to  face  with  a  life  that  cannot 
be  explained  save  as  the  unveiling  of  the  Deity,  we 
ask  how  it  would  be  possible  for  the  Eternal  Son  to 
clothe  Himself  in  human  flesh  after  the  ordinary 
manner  of  human  conception.  Here  is  something 
which  has  no  equal  or  likeness  in  the  annals  of  earth. 
It  is  not  the  case  of  a  new  man  coming  into  life,  but 
of  the  Creator  of  all  things  manifesting  Himself  in 
that  life.  If  miracle  is  ever  in  place  as  a  witness  to 
the  intervention  of  a  new  power,  the  coming  of  the 
Son  of  Man  into  our  earthly  life  was  surely  a  fit 
occasion  for  miracle." 

It  is  this,  then,  that  we  believe  about  Christ.  It 
is  our  conviction  that  He  cannot  be  explained  in 
human  terms  alone.  He  is  something  more  than  the 
highest  product  of  humanity.     He  is  the  God-Man. 

In  so  revealing  God  and  man,  the  Eternal  Son 
shows  us  some  things  which,  apart  from  a  belief  in  the 
Incarnation,  it  would  be  exceedingly  difficult  for  us 
to  realize.  He  shows  us  what  God  is;  He  shows  us 
also  what  man  should  be.  He  shows  us,  for  example, 
God's  love,  God's  personality,  God's  presence  with  us ; 


'  See  my  book,  The  Experiment  of  Faith,  page  107,  etc. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  OUR  LORD  45 

He  shows  us,  by  living  in  it  perfectly,  the  essential 
nobility  of  man's  nature.  Let  us  reserve  the  fact  of 
the  unveiling  of  Deity  for  subsequent  chapters  and 
consider  now  the  other  thought:  The  Incarnation 
tells  us  of  the  inherent  worth  of  our  humanity.  Were 
our  nature  wholly  bad,  God  the  Son  could  not  have 
taken  it  to  Himself ;  since  He  did  so  take  it,  He  has 
purified  it,  sanctified  it,  lifted  it  up  into  His  own 
divine  life. 

Eemember  now  that  Christ  is  one  Person,  God  the 
Son,  in  two  natures,  that  of  God  and  that  of  man. 
Among  the  early  heretics  was  one  named  Nestorius, 
who  did  not  believe  this.  His  explanation  was  some- 
thing like  this — and  it  is  especially  interesting  as 
expressing  clearly  what  many  people,  in  a  vague  way, 
think  now.  He  maintained  that  Mary  really  "gave 
birth  to  something  which  was  human  first  and  after- 
wards was  taken  into  ^conjunction'  with  the  Eternal 
Word";  that  the  Son  of  Mary  was  human;  at  His 
birth,  or  perhaps  not  until  His  baptism,  the  Word, 
the  Son  of  God,  made  Him  the  special  receptacle  of 
deity.  There  were  really  two  persons  in  Christ,  the 
man  who  was  born  of  a  human  mother,  and  God  who 
had  entered  into  such  close  union  with  this  man  that 
he  was  filled  with  the  divine  energy  and  was  even 
able  to  "rank  as  God". 

This  doctrine  was  condemned  by  the  Church.  We 
can  readily  see  why.  For  it  really  does  away  with 
the  Incarnation.  If  God  simply  came  down  into  the 
man  Christ,  then  He  took  upon  Himself  not  all 
humanity  but  simply  one  bit  of  humanity;  He  did 


46  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

not  Himself  become  man.  He  simply  inspired  and 
glorified  one  man  by  manifesting  Himself  through 
him.  If  Nestorius  was  right,  then  the  Gospel  is  the 
story  of  the  exaltation  of  just  one  of  God's  creatures. 
If  the  Church's  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is  accepted, 
then  God  really  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us, 
tabernacled  in  humanity,  not  in  a  man.  If  that  is 
true,  all  mankind  was  exalted  in  Christ,  not  one  single 
person;  all  mankind  was  lifted  up  into  the  Godhead, 
potentially  at  least ;  all  mankind  was  sanctified  by  the 
indwelling  of  the  Holy  One  of  God.  We  know,  in 
that  case,  that  there  is  something  about  our  human 
nature  so  splendid  that  God  can  really  enter  into  that 
nature  and  live  in  it  without  ceasing  to  be  God;  and 
since  humanity  is  essentially  so  glorious  a  thing  we 
know  that  it  can  be  lifted  up  in  Christ  back  to  what 
God  intended  it  to  be. 

The  truth  of  the  Incarnation,  therefore,  is  not  a 
mere  dead  bit  of  metaphysics.  Surely  not — it  is  a 
fact  of  practical  importance;  a  dogma,  but  a  dogma 
which  like  every  other  doctrine  of  the  Christian  creed 
influences  our  conception  of  life.  If  we  believe  in  the 
Incarnation — in  a  real  incarnation,  not  such  a  mys- 
tical conjunction  as  Nestorius  taught — we  believe 
that  Christ  sums  up  all  humanity  in  Himself.  He 
is  to  us  in  something  of  the  relation  in  which  a  com- 
posite photograph  stands  to  the  pictures  that  formed 
it.  Christ  has  in  Him  all  of  mankind.  He  is  man, 
rather  than  a  man,  and  in  Him  are  united  all  the 
members  of  the  human  race;  you  are  there  and  so 
am  I;  indeed,  there  is  no  one  who  ever  has  lived  or 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  OUR  LORD  47 

ever  will  live  in  whom  there  is  not  something  which 
goes  to  contribute  to  the  universal  character  of  Him 
who  is  the  Son  of  Man. 

And  if  this  is  so — if  Christ  is  the  sum  of  all 
humanity,  if  we  find  in  Him  something  in  common 
with  every  human  being  who  has  ever  walked  this 
earth — then  every  human  being,  however  poor  or 
degraded,  however  fallen  in  wickedness,  has  within 
him  a  germ,  a  seed,  which  if  it  can  be  developed  is 
capable  of  a  new  life  and  a  glorious  resurrection.  The 
fact  of  the  Incarnation  teaches  us  to  recognize  a  new 
and  ineffaceable  relation  between  man  and  man.  If  our 
Lord  took  upon  Him  humanity.  He  took  upon  Him 
all  types ;  and  every  man,  white  or  black,  high  or  low, 
practised  in  holiness  or  defiled  by  sin,  the  saint  of  the 
cloister  and  the  outcast  of  the  street,  the  Christian  and 
the  heathen — every  man  has  in  him  some  likeness  to 
Christ.  If  the  Christ-life  can  be  applied  to  him 
he  may  be  made  anew  after  Christ's  perfect  likeness. 
None  may  be  forgotten  or  despised.  The  Hebrew 
would  not  step  on  a  piece  of  paper,  lest  it  should  have 
written  on  it  the  Name  of  God,  and  we  cannot  look 
down  upon  God's  lowest  creature,  because  on  him  is 
stamped,  however  faintly,  the  image  of  the  Lord 
Christ. 

It  has  been  beautifully  said,  "There  is  hardly  a 
roadside  pond  or  pool  which  has  not  as  much  land- 
scape in  it  as  above  it.  It  is  not  the  dull,  brown, 
muddy  thing  we  suppose  it  to  be.  It  has  a  heart 
like  ourselves,  and  in  the  bottom  of  that,  there  are  the 
boughs  of  the  tall  trees,  and  the  blades  of  the  shaking 


48  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

grass,  and  all  manner  of  hues  of  variable  pleasant 
light  out  of  the  sky.  Nay,  that  ugly  gutter  which 
stagnates  over  the  drain  bars  in  the  heart  of  the  great 
city  is  not  altogether  base.  Down  in  that,  if  you  will 
look  deep  enough,  you  may  see  the  dark,  serious  blue 
of  the  far-off  sky,  and  the  passing  of  the  pure  clouds. 
It  is  at  your  own  will  that  you  see  in  that  despised 
stream  the  refuse  of  the  streets,  or  the  image  of  the 
sky."  What  is  true  here  is  true  of  man  as  well. 
Jesus  Christ  is  our  pledge  of  that.  He  came  to  seek 
and  to  save  those  who  were  lost,  and  He  saves  them 
by  coming  into  their  nature,  that  this  nature  may  be 
brought  into  touch  with  His.  So  long  as  breath  re- 
mains to  them,  so  long  as  He  is  reflected  ever  so 
faintly  in  them,  we  may  have  hope.  No  one  else  can 
see  into  the  depths  of  their  hearts  as  Christ  can,  and 
till  He  has  given  them  up  we  must  never  despair. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  LOVE    49 


VI. 
THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  LOVE 

JESUS  CHRIST  shows  us  what  man  may  be.  He 
also  shows  us  what  God  is.  It  is  good  in  these 
days  to  be  sure  of  what  God  really  is.  The  last  four 
years  have  been  years  that  try  men^s  souls.  Sin  and 
sorrow,  suffering  and  death,  have  been  seen  in  sharper 
outline  than  ever  before.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  men 
ask  whether  a  world  like  this  can  be  God^s  handiwork  ? 
What  kind  of  a  God  is  He  whose  universe  is  seamed 
and  scarred  with  war  and  all  its  hideous  and  horrible 
f rightfulness  ?  Yes,  we  want  to  know,  with  absolute 
certainty,  about  God.     Is  He  a  God  of  love  ? 

The  troubled  questionings  which  rose  in  men's 
hearts  when  war  brought  forth  such  a  multitude  of 
sorrows  are  the  same  old  problems  which  the  world 
has  always  faced;  only  now  they  come  to  us  more 
sharply  and  painfully  pressing.  Often  before  men 
and  women  have  been  troubled  and  have  doubted 
God's  love.  In  the  presence  of  some  great  personal 
sorrow  or  frightful  public  calamity,  or  contemplating 
the  sin  and  evil  that  lie  all  about  us,  it  must  be  that 
sometimes  faith  wiU  falter,  if  it  does  not  fail.     With 


50  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  world  full  of  suffering  and  sorrow  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  good  and 
loving  God  should  sometimes  waver.  Even  the  most 
thoughtful  and  religious  must  feel  in  the  presence  of 
such  a  mystery  a  call  to  sound  the  depths  of  their 
convictions  and  ask  upon  what  solid  basis  their 
religious  belief  rests. 

I  called  not  long  ago  on  a  friend  who  only  a  year 
before  had  married  a  sweet  and  lovely  young  woman, 
of  whom  we  were  all  very  fond.  They  had  just  those 
few  months  of  happiness,  and  then  the  wife  died,  and 
with  her  their  newborn  baby.  I  call  to  mind  now 
another  case  of  most  pitiful  bereavement.  A  widowed 
mother  was  left  to  care  for  two  little  ones ;  for  years 
she  strained  every  effort  to  give  them  the  privileges 
and  advantages  that  would  fit  them  for  life.  She  had 
worked  all  those  years,  with  the  constant  hope  before 
her  that  they  would  some  day  be  a  comfort  and  help 
to  her,  would  some  day,  when  life  opened  more 
brightly  for  them,  bless  her  for  all  the  loving  sacrifice 
of  those  years.  The  boy  had  just  finished  his  school 
life  and  had  secured  a  fine  business  position  and  the 
girl  was  just  growing  into  years  of  young  womanhood, 
when  disease  carried  both  away,  and  the  mother  was 
left  desolate.  Indeed  it  is  true  that  the  problems 
the  war  thrust  upon  us  were  old  problems.  The  diffi- 
culty of  faith  is  not  increased  when  instances  of  such 
sorrow  are  multiplied  a  million  times.  It  is  just  as 
great  a  problem,  if  one  mother  lose  her  baby. 

What  could  one  say  of  God's  love,  to  these  broken- 
hearted mourners?     What  would  any  man  dare  say. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  LOVE    51 

if  it  were  not  for  all  that  the  life  of  the  Man  of  Sor- 
rows shows  ns?  There  are  many  possible  explana- 
tions of  the  meaning  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  but  none 
of  these  explanations  really  satisfies  the  troubled  soul. 
The  great  clue  to  the  problem  is  a  steadfast  faith  in 
the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  we  have  not  such  a 
faith,  we  are  all  at  sea.  Those  who  do  possess  it  need 
to  realize  its  power  in  solving  the  difficulties  of  life, 
that  they  may  make  others  feel  its  steadying  influence. 
If  Christ  is  the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father,  there 
can  be  no  question  about  the  love  of  God.  There  may 
be  many  things  in  the  world  that  seem  to  contradict 
that  love,  but  though  we  are  mystified  in  the  presence 
of  all  this  evil  we  are  not  at  an  utter  loss.  We  know 
that  God  is  love,  because  we  know  that  Jesus  Christ 
is  love — and  Christ  is  God.  His  life  is  the  perfection 
of  love — no  one  can  deny  that..  If  He  were  merely 
a  man,  the  fact  would  mean  nothing  to  us ;  we  should 
have  but  another  instance  of  a  surpassingly  good  man 
— one  more  noble,  loving  heart — struggling  against 
evil  and  apparently  deserted  by  God,  conquered  in  the 
end.  If,  however,  Christ  is  more  than  man,  if  He  is 
God  Incarnate ;  if  He  came  on  earth  to  restore  sinful, 
suffering,  sorrowing  humanity  into  harmony  with  the 
divine  plan;  if,  moreover.  He  came,  not  of  Himself 
alone,  but  His  loving  purpose  had  its  origin  also  in 
the  Father's  will ;  in  other  words,  if  "God  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son" — then  we 
may  hold  our  faith  firm,  no  matter  what  dreadful 
calamity  or  heart-breaking  personal  sorrow  attacks  it. 
We  may  not  understand  why  God  permits  the  exist- 


52  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ence  of  pain  and  evil  and  sorrow — we  may  not  under- 
stand, but  we  know;  we  know  that  God  is  love, 
because  we  know  that  Jesus  Christ  is  love,  and  Christ 
is  God.  God,  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  once 
walked  this  earth ;  and  no  man  can  look  at  Christ  and 
doubt  His  infinite  affection.  Did  He  love  men  ?  See 
Him  as  the  leper  pleads  to  be  healed.  "And  Jesus 
stretched  forth  His  hand  and  touched  him" — touched 
the  man  who  had  not  felt  the  warmth  and  pressure  of 
a  human  hand  since  his  loathsome  disease  came  upon 
him — "touched  him,  and  said,  I  will ;  be  thou  clean." 
Did  Christ  love  men  ?  See  Him  on  the  cross,  praying 
for  His  murderers;  see  Him,  dying  that  He  might 
redeem  us.  "Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs,  and 
carried  our  sorrows ;  yet  we  did  esteem  Him  stricken, 
smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted.  But  He  was  wounded 
for  our  transgressions.  He  was  bruised  for  our  iniqui- 
ties; the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  Him; 
and  with  His  stripes  we  are  healed."  Who  can  con- 
template the  cross  and  remain  unmoved?  Who,  as 
he  draws  near  to  Calvary,  is  not  hushed  into  silence  ? 
The  offering  lifted  up  there  is  the  supreme  exhibition 
of  love,  in  its  length  and  breadth  and  depth  and 
height  so  great  that  it  "passeth  knowledge". 

Let  me  repeat,  however,  at  the  risk  of  being  te- 
dious, that  all  this  would  prove  nothing,  were  Christ 
but  a  man.  We  see  around  us  now  men  who  love 
their  fellows;  would  it  prove  more  to  be  told  that 
this  was  a  man  who  loved  them  to  perfection?  If 
He  is  God — then  when  we  see  how  He  loved  us  we 
begin  to  see  how  God  loves  us  and  whatever  of  ill 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  LOVE  53 

we  are  called  upon  to  bear  we  can  continue  in  patience 
to  trust  in  His  goodness.  There  is  God  Incarnate, 
we  say,  and  in  His  presence  we  believe  and  are  sure. 
Whether  all  things  can  be  explained  or  not,  we  know 
in  whom  we  have  believed.  Our  God  is  the  God  who 
once  entered  into  the  tragedy  of  human  life  to  show 
that  He  understands  and  sympathizes. 

Look  at  it  again  from  another  point  of  view. 
The  thought  of  Christ's  divinity  assures  us  also  of  the 
Father's  affection  for  us ;  for  it  teaches  us  to  see  how 
"God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  that  He 
spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up  for  us 
all."  "In  this  was  manifested  the  love  of  God 
toward  us,  because  that  God  sent  His  only-begotten 
Son  into  the  world,  that  we  might  live  through  Him. 
Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He 
loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins."  Had  God  sent  a  man  into  the  world,  a 
good  man  who  lived  a  righteous  life  and  died  a  self- 
sacrificing  death,  and  then  had  God  accepted  this 
sacrifice  as  a  ransom  for  other  men,  it  would  hardly 
have  showed  God  as  just,  much  less  loving;  but  if 
God  Himself  came  to  save  us,  if  He  gave  His  own  Son 
— there  was  love  indeed,  love  on  the  part  of  the  Son, 
and  love  also  on  the  part  of  the  Father!  A  pious 
English  cottager,  on  hearing  the  text,  "God  so  loved 
the  world,"  exclaimed,  "Ah !  that  was  love.  I  could 
have  given  myself,  but  I  could  never  have  given  my 
son."  Since  then  many  have  given  their  dearest  and 
best  in  France  and  Flanders,  in  supreme  sacrifice. 


54  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Surely  it  must  make   them  understand  better  the 
Father's  part  in  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary. 

So  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation  gives  us  the  best 
clue  that  can  be  found  in  solving  the  mysteries  of  sin 
and  sorrow.  The  great  secret  of  the  Church  is  that 
this  world,  however  much  of  the  strain  and  stress  of 
pain  and  terror  there  may  be  about  it,  is  indeed  ruled 
by  Almighty  Love.  That  is  the  fact  of  which  the 
doctrine  is  only  the  abstract  expression;  that  is  the 
great  fact  which  men  are  doubting  when  they  doubt 
this  doctrine;  that  is  the  great  fact  which  the  Bible 
puts  for  us  beyond  all  question,  not  simply  by  naming 
the  doctrine,  but  by  telling  us  the  story  of  the  Christ 
who  came  down  from  heaven  that  we  might  have  life. 

It  seems  almost  too  good  to  be  true,  does  it  not? 
In  reality  it  is  too  great  and  splendid  not  to  be  true. 
There  is  a  poem  of  Browning  in  which  Karshish,  the 
Arab  physician,  writes  a  letter  to  his  friend  Ahib  to 
tell  of  meeting  Lazarus  of  Bethany  and  of  the  latter's 
belief  that  the  One  who  raised  him  from  the  grave 
Himself  was  God.  Karshish  plays  about  the  thought 
with  a  strange  fascination ;  he  cannot  dismiss  it  from 
his  mind.  Suppose  it  were  true !  "The  very  God  I 
Think,  Ahib !"  he  writes.  "So  the  All-Great  were  the 
All-Loving  too." 

Surely,  were  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ  better 
known  the  real  message  of  His  life  would  be  apparent. 
God  is  not  a  God  of  lonely  majesty  and  self  suffi- 
ciency. Once  He  came  visibly  among  men  to  show 
them  what  He  really  is.    The  man  who  has  seen  Jesus 


THE  INCARNATION.  AND  GOD'S  LOVE    55 

has  seen  God  and  has  learned  the  secret  of  all  secrets, 
that  God  is  love.  The  Christian  believer  walks  through 
a  world  of  sorrow  with  peace  in  his  soul.^  Years  ago 
Browning,  in  another  wonderful  poem,  made  David 
tell  Saul  of  a  God  such  as  the  Christian  worships : 

'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength,  that  I  cry  for !    My  flesh  that 

I  seek 
In  the  Godhead!     I  seek  and  I  find  it!     0  Saul,  it  shall  be 
A  Face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee;  a  Man  like  to  me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever:  a  Hand  like  this 

hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee!     See  the 

Christ  stand. 


'  See  ray  Back  to  Christ,  chapter  ii. 


56  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


VII. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PERSONALITY 

THERE  are  very  few  men  who  have  not  some 
realization,  more  or  less  intense,  of  the  existence 
of  a  Supreme  Power  bearing  some  sort  of  relation 
to  the  world.  They  may  never  have  heard  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  but  they  would  agree  with  him,  if  they  had 
heard  of  him,  when  he  tells  us,  as  the  result  of  his 
philosophic  study  of  the  subject,  that  "it  is  absolutely 
certain  that  we  are  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed." 
Man  is  born,  almost,  with  this  idea  pressing  upon 
him;  he  cannot  escape  it.  No  matter  how  skeptical 
he  may  be,  no  matter  how  careless  his  life,  no  matter 
how  little  he  may  think  it  possible  to  know  about 
God — if  there  be  a  God — this  one  simple  conviction 
he  cannot  escape,  that  somewhere  in  the  universe, 
whether  it  be  a  power  unknowable,  a  blind  force,  an 
impersonal  activity,  whatever  it  may  be,  somewhere 
there  is  an  infinite  and  eternal  energy,  an  energy 
from  which  all  creation  has  sprung.  Sometimes,  as 
he  pauses  in  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  a  careless  life, 
this  thought  will  be  borne  in  upon  him  with  special 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PERSONALITY     57 

force,  burdening  and  oppressing  him  with  its  awful 
presence.  Whatever  he  may  believe  or  disbelieve, 
when  he  gets  by  himself,  in  the  loneliness  of  his  own 
room  or  out  under  the  stillness  of  the  midnight  sky, 
back  will  come  this  instinct  that  he  is  not  really  alone, 
that  some  power  holds  him  in  its  grasp,  some  energy 
is  pushing  him  on,  somewhere  and  somehow  there  is 
a  force  above  him  which  he  can  never  get  away  from, 
that  envelops  him  and  seizes  him  and  in  some  mys- 
terious way  controls  his  life. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  such  a  belief  as  this 
really  is  either  no  knowledge  of  God  at  all,  or  no 
such  knowledge  of  Him  as  man,  if  he  has  a  spark  of 
what  we  call  religion,  needs  and  must  long  for;  yet 
it  seems  sometimes  as  if  it  were  pretty  much  as  far 
as  some  people  have  ever  gone  in  their  thinking  about 
heavenly  things.  Their  main  idea  of  God  is  this 
thought  of  some  eternal  power,  in  the  presence  of 
which  they  feel  a  momentary  awe  and  oppression. 
They  fear  God,  when  they  stop  to  think  of  Him,  much 
as  a  child  fears  the  darlcness  or  the  thunder. 

Now  religion  is  the  worship  and  service  of  a  Su- 
preme Being,  and  therefore  for  religion  to  have  any 
hold  on  men  it  is  necessary  that  they  should  think 
about  God,  primarily,  not  as  a  Power  but  as  a  Person. 
We  cannot  really  offer  God  an  act  of  worship,  we 
cannot  give  Him  any  genuine  service,  we  cannot  pray 
to  Him,  unless  we  have  a  deep  and  certain  realization 
of  His  personal  being.  This  is  Just  what  we  find  so 
hard  to  get,  just  what  men  have  always  found  hard 
to  gain.     All  that  we  know  of  personality  we  know 


58  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

through  men  and  women  whom  we  have  seen  and 
with  whom  we  have  had  direct  intercourse.  How 
then  can  we  ever  realize  the  personality  of  God — 
whom  we  have  not  seen,  whom  no  man  can  see? 
Again  and  again  there  comes  over  us  the  awful  sense 
of  His  presence;  again  and  again  we  feel  our  own 
moral  responsibility  and  begin  to  realize  that  there 
must  be  some  One  who  sees  and  judges;  again  and 
again  we  tell  ourselves  that  God  must  be  more  than 
an  ever-present  impersonal  force,  that  He  must  be 
a  Being  who  in  some  way  acts  as  do  the  finite  beings 
who  are  made  in  His  image;  but  it  is  all  a  hard  and 
painful  struggle  against  heavy  odds.  "Shew  us  the 
Father,"  we  say,  in  the  words  of  St.  Philip;  "shew 
us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us."  If  we  could  have 
but  one  glimpse  of  God;  if  we  could  but  have  some 
vision  that  would  assure  us  that  He  is  a  Person  who 
knows  us  and  with  whom  we  may  have  communion 
and  fellowship;  if  we  could  but  rise  out  of  this 
ignorance  of  His  manner  of  life  and  think  of  Him 
as  something  more  than  energy,  infinite  and  eternal 
though  it  be !  "Shew  us  the  Father."  Let  us  see 
Him;  let  us  know  Him  personally,  after  the  same 
fashion  in  which  we  know  our  earthly  friends.  Then 
everything  will  be  easy,  then  faith  will  never  fail,  then 
we  shall  be  able  to  pray  with  earnestness,  then  we  can 
give  ourselves  to  His  service,  then  we  can  yield  Him 
personal  devotion  and  pay  Him  homage  and  worship. 

As  we  long  thus  for  this   deeper  knowledge   of 
God,  our  Lord  Christ  comes  to  us,  Christ  the  Incar- 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PERSONALITY    59 

nate  Son,  and  says,  "Have  I  been  so  long  time  with 
you,  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me?  He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

Ah !  There  is  the  answer  to  all  our  craving.  Here 
is  God.  He  that  hath  seen  Christ  hath  seen  God. 
The  Word,  the  Son  of  God,  the  express  image,  the 
stamped  copy  of  His  Person,  became  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us  and  from  that  moment  it  has  been  easier 
to  know  God,  easier  to  realize  His  eternal  personal 
being,  easier  to  come  to  Him  and  find  in  Him  a 
Friend  and  a  Father.  All  along  we  have  been  grasp- 
ing up  after  the  Infinite  and  have  failed  to  hold  it 
fast;  now  the  Infinite  has  stooped  to  our  finite  level, 
and  we  may  know  God  as  we  know  one  another. 

How  plain  it  is  !  All  through  their  long  training 
with  the  Lord  Christ  the  disciples  were  being  pre- 
pared for  this.  They  were  not  let  at  once  into  the 
secret  of  His  divinity ;  but  they  were  brought  to  know 
Him,  allowed  to  meet  with  Him,  day  by  day  grew 
to  be  on  more  intimate  terms  with  Him;  in  His 
words  and  deeds  they  saw  the  brightness  of  God's 
glory,  and  as  they  learned  to  know  Christ  they  felt 
themselves  gradually  understanding  more  of  God, 
they  felt  a  new  life  within  them,  they  saw  by  a  new 
light.  Then  one  day,  when  they  had  reached  the 
height  of  personal  intimacy  with  the  Master,  He  said 
to  them,  "I  and  My  Father  are  One.  He  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father.'^  Now  that  you  know 
Me,  He  seemed  to  mean,  you  know  God.  You  have 
longed  to  draw  near  to  Him,  and  to  see  Him  in  the 
very  essence  of  His  being.     Now  you  may;  for  you 


60  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

have  seen  and  known  Me,  and  when  you  see  Me  you 
see  My  Father  also,  you  see  God. 

How  plain  it  was;  how  simple,  even  when  He 
had  gone  away,  had  left  earth  for  Heaven!  They 
had  seen  God,  had  talked  with  Him  and  lived  with 
Him :  •  that  was  what  those  three  years  of  discipleship 
with  Christ  meant.  They  had  seen  and  heard  and 
handled  the  Word  of  Life;  they  beheld  His  glory 
shining  out  in  His  human  life  and  henceforth  they 
could  never  forget.  Back  they  went  in  memory  to 
all  their  life  with  Him,  to  the  days  when  they  had 
questioned  Him  about  their  perplexities,  when  they 
had  carried  their  troubles  to  Him,  when  they  had 
asked  Him  of  this  thing  and  that,  when  they  had 
knelt  at  His  feet  and  offered  Him  their  reverent 
service.  Now  they  saw  that  they  had  been  doing  all 
that  with  God — God  whom  they  had  longed  to  see 
and  know. 

And  how  plain  it  is  for  us  now !  As  we  read  the 
Gospels  we  find  there  the  picture  of  a  Person  who 
once  walked  this  earth  of  ours,  with  whom  men  once 
talked,  whom  they  knew  as  a  Friend  and  loved  as  a 
Brother.  As  we  read  we  begin  to  know  and  love  Him 
too.  By  and  by  we  see  that  this  was  no  mere  man, 
that  He  was  and  is  God,  our  God  forever  and  ever. 
Seeing  that,  we  see  that  God  is  a  Person  such  as  was 
this  Man  of  Galilee,  a  Being  whom  we  may  know, 
love,  honor,  and  worship,  to  whom  we  may  pray  with 
the  certainty  that  He  hears  and  answers — no  blind 
force  or  power,  but  in  some  way  One  like  ourselves, 
only  infinitely  more  than  we  are. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PERSONALITY    61 

There  have  been  times,  perhaps,  when  we  were 
not  able  to  realize  that  personality;  times  when  we 
felt  only  the  dull  weight  of  a  presence  that  oppressed 
us  but  gave  us  no  peace,  no  comfort,  no  joy;  times 
when  we  could  not  be  certain  that  God  knew,  or 
listened,  or  would  help.  But  now  we  go  back  to  our 
Bible ;  and,  reading  it  in  the  light  of  this  Incarnation 
that  has  become  so  plain,  we  have  our  thought  of  God 
transformed;  we  believe,  and  feel  that  we  can  doubt 
no  more,  for  we  know  that  this  is  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  Living  God. 


62  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


VIII. 
THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PRESENCE 

THERE  are  two  ways  of  thinking  about  God. 
We  may  think  of  His  immanence  or  of  His 
transcendence.  By  the  immanence  of  God  we  mean 
His  presence  and  activity  in  every  part  of  His  crea- 
tion. The  motion  of  the  planet  in  its  orbit  and  the 
dropping  of  a  leaf  in  the  breeze  of  summer  alike  dis- 
play His  power.  By  God^s  transcendence,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  mean  His  position  without  and  be- 
yond nature;  we  think  of  Him  as  dwelling  above  the 
world,  guiding  and  directing  its  movements. 

It  is  this  latter  thought  which  we  more  frequently 
associate  with  God's  personality.  When  we  think  of 
His  immanence  we  are  apt  to  rest  in  the  idea  of 
energy,  force,  power  universally  excited;  we  think  of 
a  divine  presence,  but  we  are  likely  to  have  a  very 
indefinite  conception  of  that  presence,  corresponding 
to  the  vague  feeling  of  awe  that  oppresses  us  as  we 
contemplate  nature  in  her  more  solemn  moods.  In 
order  to  have  the  conception  of  God's  personality,  we 
must  add  to  the  thought  of  His  immanence  the  idea 
of  His  transcendence.    He  is  not  only  within  nature, 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PRESENCE    63 

filling  it  with  life  and  energy,  but  He  is  above  nature, 
as  a  personal  Superintendent,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
directing  its  workings. 

But  just  here  comes  the  difficulty.  As  we  grasp 
this  latter  idea  more  fully,  instinctively  we  put  God 
away  from  us.  We  think  of  Him  as  a  Being  far-off, 
in  other  regions  than  those  we  inhabit.  We  forget 
that  God  can  never  leave  His  world,  that  He  cannot 
be  banished  from  His  creation,  that  He  cannot  have 
made  the  world  and  started  it  going  and  then  left  it 
to  its  own  operation,  with  once  in  a  while  a  special 
intervention  on  His  part.  We  are  so  apt  to  get  that 
notion  of  an  absentee  God  against  which  a  modern 
writer  so  vehemently  protests,  "the  conception  of  a 
God  sitting  in  the  centre  of  the  universe  ruling  things, 
as  an  imperial  Caesar  sits  in  Kome." 

The  thought,  perhaps,  may  not  be  altogether 
clear;  so  suppose,  in  order  to  appreciate  it,  we  put 
a  question  to  ourselves.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how  are 
we  accustomed  to  think  about  God?  We  feel  His 
personal  existence,  let  us  hope,  very  deeply ;  but  how 
do  we  think  of  this  personal  Being  ?  Do  we  think  of 
Him  oftenest  as  being  with  us,  at  our  side,  looking 
into  our  faces,  or  do  we  think  of  Him  as  being  far 
away,  entirely  out  of  our  reach  ?  Is  it  not  a  fact  that 
from  childhood  we  have  been  putting  Him  ever  at  a 
distance;  kneeling  to  pray  to  Him,  and  yet  somehow 
feeling  that  we  must  strive  hard  to  make  Him  hear; 
picturing  Him  in  heaven,  "above  the  bright  blue  sky," 
as  the  children's  hymn  puts  it,  One  who  hears,  and 
yet  somehow — we  cannot  explain  it,  but  somehow — 


64  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

almost  out  of  the  sound  of  our  voices,  almost  out  of 
reach?  We  pray,  and  it  seems  necessary  to  lift  the 
eyes  and  stretch  out  the  hands  and  strain  after  God. 
Yes,  we  know  that  He  is  a  person,  but  He  seems  al- 
ways to  be  a  distant  person;  He  seems  never  to  be 
here.  He  is  always  there,  just  beyond  us,  not  with  us, 
never  leaning  over  us  as  the  mother  did  at  whose  knee 
we  bent  in  childhood,  with  her  hand  on  the  little 
one's  head,  and  her  face  over  him.  This  is  the  way 
we  long  to  think  about  God ;  we  want  to  have  a  deeper 
sense  of  His  nearness,  we  wish  to  realize  His  personal 
presence. 

Now  a  moment's  thought  will  convince  us  that  de- 
vout meditation  on  the  Incarnation  can  satisfy  this 
longing  for  God.  See  how  it  was  with  the  early  dis- 
ciples. We  are  not  to  suppose  that  from  the  moment 
they  saw  Christ  they  understood  His  divine  nature. 
At  first  He  was  to  them  only  a  very  good  man.  We 
ourselves  come  into  the  presence  of  a  man  or  woman 
of  saintly  character  and  at  once  we  seem  to  be  breath- 
ing a  different  air,  there  is  a  subtle  something  in  the 
conversation  and  bearing  of  our  friend  that  rests  like 
a  benediction  upon  us  and  God  seems  nearer.  So 
it  was  that  the  disciples  first  knew  Christ,  we  may 
suppose.  Not  without  reason  do  the  painters  picture 
Him  with  a  halo  about  His  head  and  a  glory  shining 
from  His  person.  It  was  so,  in  a  figure,  that  the  dis- 
ciples saw  Him  from  that  first  day  when  the  Baptist 
pointed  Him  out  to  Andrew  and  John  at  the  riverside. 

Then,  as  their  intimacy  with  Him  deepened,  they 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PRESENCE    65 

began  to  know  Him  as  the  Messiah  and  remembering 
all  that  had  been  told  by  the  prophets  of  how  God's 
grace  should  be  poured  on  the  Anointed  One  they 
learned  to  think  of  Him  as  indeed  bringing  the  Al- 
mighty very  close  to  them.  Yet  later  they  knew  Him 
as  in  some  special  sense  the  Son  of  God  and  the 
significance  of  the  title  grew  upon  them  as  He  spoke 
to  them  from  time  to  time  of  His  union  with  the 
Father,  of  His  equality  with  Him  and  of  the  necessity 
of  a  personal  union  with  Himself  in  order  to  be  knit 
up  into  the  divine  life.  What  it  all  meant  they  did 
not  fully  understand  then,  but  as  time  went  on  He 
spoke  more  and  more  plainly  and  then,  after  the 
resurrection,  they  saw  the  meaning  of  His  life,  saw 
that  in  the  presence  of  their  Master  they  were  in  the 
very  presence  of  God. 

So  their  faith  grew.  Mark  how  its  gradual  de- 
velopment prepared  them  to  realize  at  the  last  God's 
presence  with  them  in  Christ.  They  could  not  have 
understood  or  believed  it  at  the  first,  but  after  all  this 
training  the  truth  came  home  to  them  now.  They 
saw  that  when  they  had  been  speaking  with  Christ; 
when  they  had  reverently  touched  His  hand,  when 
they  had  knelt  at  His  feet,  when  they  had  told  Him 
of  their  joys  and  sorrows,  or  asked  His  help,  or 
offered  Him  their  love,  they  had  been  walking  and 
talking  with  God.  That  was  why  their  hearts  burned 
within  them :  they  were  in  the  divine  presence,  follow- 
ing God  as  His  dear  children.  Once  they  had  known 
Christ  after  the  flesh,  but  now  they  knew  Him  so  no 
more.     They  had  gradually  come  to  the  revelation  and 


66  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

so  they  could  grasp  it.  They  looked  back  upon  the 
old  life  and  realized  its  secret  and  knew  now  why  the 
Master  was  to  be  called  Emmanuel;  truly,  in  a  way 
far  higher  than  they  had  dreamed,  He  was  God 
with  us. 

We  note  how  this  sense  of  the  presence  of  God 
with  them  was  deepened  by  the  resurrection  appear- 
ances. There  seems  to  have  been  a  plan  followed  in 
Christ's  way  of  manifesting  Himself.  The  disciples 
had  been  with  Him  and  had  known  His  presence  in 
the  flesh  so  long,  that  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  be  prepared  for  the  different  presence  that  was 
to  be  vouchsafed  them  after  the  ascension.  Before, 
they  had  known  that  He  was  with  them  because  they 
had  seen  Him  with  their  eyes  and  handled  Him  with 
their  hands.  Sometimes  they  were  still  given  the 
opportunity  to  do  that — for  they  must  be  assured  of 
His  bodily  resurrection — ^but  now  He  always  came 
and  went  so  mysteriously.  One  moment  they  were 
alone  in  the  upper  chamber  and  the  next  He  came 
and  stood  in  the  midst.  Again,  they  were  fishing  by 
the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  they  looked  up  to  find  Him 
standing  on  the  shore.  The  disciples  on  the  road  to 
Emmaus  met  Him  and  then  just  as  they  recognized 
Him  He  vanished.  Was  it  not  so,  that  the  lesson 
might  gradually  be  learned,  the  lesson  we  need  to 
learn  ourselves,  that  He  was  always  with  them,  in 
their  work,  in  their  worship,  at  the  social  board; 
always  with  them,  but  unveiling  His  presence  only 
now  and  then?     Later  came  the  ascension,  when  a 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  GOD'S  PRESENCE    67 

cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight ;  but  they  knew, 
after  all  that  training,  that  He  had  not  gone  away; 
He  was  still  present,  though  thereafter  the  veil  was 
not  to  be  lifted  for  them.  All  the  Easter  appearances 
had  been  given  to  make  them  understand  this,  that 
He  was  ever  by  their  side,  and  had  only  to  part  the 
cloud  and  reveal  Himself  when  He  would.  Now  and 
then  the  veil  was  lifted,  for  St.  Stephen,  for  St. 
Paul ;  but  for  the  most  part  there  were  to  be  no  more 
visions ;  indeed,  they  were  so  sure  now  of  His  presence 
that  visions  were  no  longer  needed ;  they  knew,  though 
they  could  not  see. 

Christ  is  with  us;  and  Christ  is  God,  therefore 
God  is  with  us.  That  is  what  the  Incarnation  meant 
in  the  apostolic  days,  and  that  is  what  it  means  now. 
If  we  do  not  feel  it ;  if  as  we  gather  together  for  wor- 
ship in  His  name  there  is  no  deepened  sense  of  the 
nearness  of  Christ  and  the  Father ;  if  there  has  been 
no  catching  of  the  breath,  no  glow  at  the  heart,  no 
reverent  awe,  no  sacred  sense  of  mystery,  then  we 
must  turn  back  and  seek  to  quicken  our  faith.  What 
do  we  really  believe  about  Christ?  Are  we  sure  that 
He  is  divine?  If  so,  what  He  did  of  old  He  does 
now.  If  we  pray  to  have  our  faith  strengthened  we 
too  shall  see  and  know  and  for  us  too  God  will  come 
and  speak  and  help  and  strengthen. 

Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  spirit  with  spirit  can 

meet; 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  or  feet. 


68  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


IX. 

SIN  AND  THE  FALL 

THE  existence  of  sin  and  evil  in  the  world  is  pos- 
sibly the  greatest  mystery  we  are  called  upon  to 
face,  and  yet,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  the  idea  of 
a  world  of  men  and  women  altogether  good  and  true, 
without  the  possibility  of  evil  as  a  thing  they  had 
deliberately  rejected,  would  be  a  much  more  difficult 
conception.  For  moral  goodness  implies  virtue  that 
comes  from  choice. 

Sometimes  we  hear  people  say  that  God  might 
have  made  us  good,  and  kept  us  good,  that  He  might 
have  created  us  so  that  there  would  be  no  possibility 
of  our  doing  what  is  wrong.  Could  He  have  done 
that  ?  We  can  hardly  see  how.  For  then  we  should 
not  be  men  and  women  at  all;  we  should  be  mere 
machines  and  our  goodness  would  be  like  the  "good- 
ness" of  a  perfectly  constructed  watch  or  a  delicately 
adjusted  engine;  it  would  have  no  moral  element 
about  it  whatever,  it  would  be  mere  mechanical  good- 
ness. Instead  of  our  being  free  agents,  serving  God 
because  we  would  show  Him  a  loving  and  grateful 
obedience,    we    should    be    wooden    puppets,    always 


SIN  AND  THE  FALL  69 

moving  in  the  right  direction,  but  doing  so  because 
we  were  put  here  or  there  and  caused  to  do  this  or 
that,  at  the  touch  of  a  hand  that  moved  the  springs 
and  wires. 

Take  two  boys  who  have  been  brought  up  in  dif- 
ferent ways  by  equally  virtuous  and  conscientious 
parents.  Suppose  that  one  of  them  has  been  so  care- 
fully guarded  from  sin  that  he  has  not  been  allowed 
to  think  things  out  for  himself.  His  father  has  al- 
ways told  him  just  exactly  what  to  read,  what  to  see, 
what  to  speak,  whom  to  meet,  what  to  do.  In  the 
effort  to  prevent  the  boy  from  doing  wrong  he  has 
kept  away  from  him  all  knowledge  of  any  but  his 
own  views  and  the  son  has  grown  up,  therefore,  in 
innocence.  But  he  is  not  necessarily,  on  that  account, 
a  good  man.  His  virtue  is  the  virtue  of  ignorance. 
He  does  what  his  father  has  taught  him,  because  there 
has  never  entered  into  his  mind  a  conception  of  any- 
thing else.  He  has  been  so  carefully  guarded  that  he 
has  practically  no  independent  existence  apart  from 
that  of  the  parent  who  has  moulded  and  shaped  him. 
Suppose  it  were  possible  for  a  father  to  train  his  son, 
strictly  and  absolutely,  after  this  method — what  sort 
of  man  would  he  grow  up  to  be,  do  you  suppose? 
Would  you  not  think  him  a  mere  nonentity?  You 
would  realize  that  to  have  him  stay  good  as  long  as  he 
lived,  he  must  never  be  separated  from  his  father. 
The  only  hope  of  his  remaining  virtuous  would  lie  in 
his  remaining  bound  and  restricted :  the  kind  of  good- 
ness that  such  a  boy  had  would  be  utterly  inconsistent 
with  freedom.     No  father  ever  yet  succeeded  in  train- 


70  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ing  a  child  precisely  in  this  way;  but  we  have  often 
seen  parents  who  have  tried  to,  and  just  in  measure 
as  they  have  succeeded  have  they  made  the  children 
of  such  training  poor,  weak  creatures,  with  little  true 
moral  strength  or  steadfast  virtue/ 

Contrast  such  a  training  with  that  of  a  boy  whose 
father  has  carefully  inculcated  in  him  the  keenest 
sense  of  duty  and  the  deepest  principles  of  morality, 
but  has  sought  to  guide  rather  than  force  his  thought. 
He  has  been  constantly  pointed  to  what  is  good  and 
right  and  honorable,  but  he  has  been  allowed  to  see 
the  other  side,  too,  warned  of  its  perils,  told  of  its 
hatefulness,  but  allowed  to  face  it  for  himself  and 
left  to  make  his  choice  from  right  principles.  Such 
a  boy  will  probably  do  things  that  are  wrong,  but 
under  the  guidance  of  a  good  father  he  will  ordinarily 
grow  into  a  strong,  sturdy,  moral  manhood.  Sud- 
denly deprived  of  the  father^s  guidance,  he  will  not 
plunge  into  weak  and  sinful  excesses  but  will  face 
evil  alone  and  gain  now  in  moral  power  by  the  same 
strength  that  has  become  his  in  facing  these  very 
things  before  with  the  father's  help  and  guidance. 

Now  we  may  reverently  say  that  God,  in  training 
us  His  children,  had  to  choose  between  these  two 
methods — except  that  with  Him  either  plan  could 
have  been  carried  to  perfection.  As  was  said  before, 
however,  the  first  method  would  never  have  produced 
a  real  humanity,  it  would  have  generated  a  race  of 
"doll  children",  so  to  speak.     However  perfectly  evil 


See  Latham,  Pastor  Pastorum,  lecture  ii. 


SIN  AND  THE  FALL  71 

might  have  been  avoided,  the  result  would  have  been  a 
wooden  perfection.  It  could  have  been  said,  "These 
are  good  men,  good  women,"  but  only  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  now  speak  of  a  "good"  picture,  or  a  "good" 
tool,  or  a  "good"  piece  of  workmanship. 

So  it  will  be  seen  to  some  extent  why  evil  exists  in 
God's  world  from  the  beginning,  at  least  as  a  possi- 
bility of  thought.  God,  when  He  made  man,  wished 
to  create  a  being  whose  goodness  would  be  a  moral 
goodness,  who  would  serve  Him  from  choice,  whose 
virtue  of  life  would  be  a  growth  and  development,  not 
a  finished  creation.  God,  therefore,  made  man  a  free 
agent.  The  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  shows  how 
the  man  so  made  was  left  to  choose  to  serve  his 
Creator.  It  is  not  necessary  to  insist  that  the  narra- 
tive shall  be  read  as  literal  prose  fact.  It  need  not 
be  historical  truth.  It  is  embodied  truth.  Stripped 
of  its  imagery,  the  story  tells  us  that  man  was  placed 
in  a  condition  of  life  in  which  all  was  good  and  fair; 
that  evil,  however,  was  there  in  thought  for  him  to 
contemplate,  that  he  was  to  know  it  as  a  possibility, 
but  not  from  actual  experience.  Left  thus,  our  first 
forefather,  at  Satan's  temptation,  fell.  The  pleasures 
of  sin  were  placed  before  Eve,  and  she  and  Adam 
with  her  were  lured  into  tasting  evil.  The  tree  of 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  was  there  for  them  to 
look  upon,  for  they  must  know  of  the  possibility  of 
evil  or  they  could  not  be  really  good.  They  chose  to 
know  more  than  the  possibility,  they  would  know 
experimentally,  and  so  they  fell.    But  it  was  infinitely 


72  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

better  that  they  should  be  in  danger  of  falling  than 
that  they  should  be  kept  under  God's  perfect  restraint 
and  made  to  do  right.  It  is  the  crowning  glory  of 
man,  some  one  has  said,  that  he  can  stand  before  his 
Creator  and  say,  "I  will  not."  Had  he  contemplated 
his  power  and  declared  instead,  "Lord,  I  will ;  help 
me  and  I  will,"  the  story  of  the  race  would  have  been 
a  very  different  one;  but  had  the  choice  never  been 
given  the  narrative  would  never  have  been  a  human 
story  at  all.  Men  became  evil  when  they  used  against 
God  the  power  that  was  given  them  to  use  for  Him. 

Perhaps  some  one  will  say  that  such  an  explana- 
tion as  this  implies  that  God  is  the  author  of  imper- 
fection. Nothing  of  the  sort.  God,  when  He  had 
made  man,  could  look  upon  His  own  creation,  and 
"behold,  it  was  very  good."  But  this  goodness  was 
an  undeveloped  perfection;  it  was  the  perfection  of 
a  beautifully  formed  bud,  not  the  perfection  of  the 
full-blown  flower.  God  made  the  first  man  with  the 
goodness  of  childhood,  intending  that  this  should  de- 
velop into  the  stronger,  deeper,  richer  goodness  of 
full-grown  age. 

It  would  not  be  honest,  however,  to  pass  over  this 
aspect  of  the  subject  without  squarely  meeting  one 
decided  difficulty  which  the  thought  of  the  day  forces 
upon  us.  It  is  constantly  objected  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  fall  of  man  that  if  Adam's  transgression  means 
also  the  downfall  of  the  race,  the  conception  goes 
wholly  against  the  evolutionary  theory.  This  theory 
— which   is  now  generally   accepted — tells   us   of   a 


SIN  AND  THE  FALL  73 

progressive  development  from   inorganic  matter  to 
organic,  from  bnite  to  man,  and  from  primitive  man 
to  the  race  as  we  find  it  to-day.     Now  Christianity 
seems  to  run  counter  to  all  this  with  its  "belief  in  a 
moral  change  for  the  worse,  happening  at  a  definite 
time,  and  yet  affecting  the  whole  human  race."     Is 
this  theory  of  a  moral  degradation  reasonable,  we  are 
asked,  in  view  of  the  general  fact  of  constant  ad- 
vance?    Is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  that  man  is  in 
every  way  higher  and  better  to-day  than  was  his  first 
forefather  ?     Was  the  fall  a  fall  up  instead  of  down  ? 
We  can  only  reply  to  this  that  science  above  every- 
thing else  teaches  us  to  be  true  to  facts;  and  the 
presence  of  sin  in  the  world,  of  a  disorder  and  strug- 
gle in  human  nature  which  is  unnatural,  is  something 
we  must  honestly  face."     No  theory  of  evolution  is 
complete  which  ignores  the  fact  that  while  man  is 
indeed  developing  and  making  progress,  his  progress 
is  checked  and  impeded  in  one  part,  and  that  the  very 
highest  part,  of  his  nature.     However  great  his  de- 
velopment has  been,  it  is  still  a  retarded  development, 
slower  than  it  might  have  been,  less  regular  and  less 
sure  than  God  meant  it  to  be.     Sin  seems  to  be  the 
cause  of  this ;  it  only  can  account  for  the  dark  shadow 
which  rests  upon  all  human  history  and  has  held  man 
back    from    his    full    development — and    sin    itself 
cannot  be   satisfactorily  explained.      It   is   the   one 
irrational,  lawless,  meaningless  thing  in  the  whole 
universe.    It  is  because  he  is  true  to  facts,  then,  that  a 

^The    following   paragraph    is    condensed    from    Aubrey 
Moore,  Science  and  the  Faith. 


74  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Christian  evolutionist  refuses  to  acquiesce  in  the  easy 
optimism  of  those  who  see  but  one  side  of  human  de- 
velopment and  ignore  this  great  obstacle  to  the  true 
progress  of  the  race.  No  revelation  is  needed  to  show 
how  deep  and  wide  is  the  havoc  which  sin  has  wrought 
in  the  world.  The  very  world  agony  through  which 
we  have  passed  is  too  awful  a  "reversion  to  type''  to 
be  regarded  as  merely  a  reversion. 

To  go  back  again  to  our  argument  after  this  in- 
terruption, let  us  repeat :  God  made  man  good  and 
then  man  lost  his  original  goodness.  He  made  man 
at  harmony  with  Himself  and  man  by  his  disobedi- 
ence broke  that  harmony,  became  separated  from  God 
and  lost  the  grace  which  alone  kept  him  true  to  him- 
self. We  may  illustrate  what  happened  at  the  fall 
by  saying  that  man,  being  made  in  the  image  of  God, 
was  intended  to  reflect  God's  likeness,  as  our  own 
features  are  reflected  in  the  smooth  surface  of  a  pool 
of  water.  At  the  fall  this  reflected  image  was  marred, 
rather  than  absolutely  lost.  We  look  at  our  faces  as 
reflected  in  a  mirror,  and  if  we  break  the  glass  the 
reflection  is  hopelessly  gone;  we  look  into  the  pool 
and  if  by  stirring  up  the  water  or  disturbing  its  sur- 
face the  image  becomes  broken  or  dulled  we  know 
that  by  and  by  it  will  be  restored,  when  the  water  is 
smooth  and  clear  again.  So,  when  man  fell,  the  im- 
age of  God  was  lost,  but  not  lost  in  such  a  way  as  to 
be  destroyed  beyond  hope  of  restoration. 

One  word,  too,  as  to  the  fact  that  when  Adam  fell 
the  whole  race  fell  with  him.     Let  it  be  emphasized 


SIN  AND  THE  FALL  75 

again  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  assert  that  the  whole 
story  of  Genesis  is  bald,  literal  fact.  It  is  a  great 
epic  which  embodies  a  great  truth.  We  are  getting  to 
realize  more  and  more  in  our  day  the  solidarity  of 
mankind.  No  man  can  live  to  himself.  Whatever 
he  does  must  affect  many  others  and  his  sins  and  his 
virtues  alike  inevitably  influence  many  lives  beyond 
his  own.  We  need  not  be  surprised,  therefore,  when 
we  are  told  that  in  the  infancy  of  the  race  all  man- 
kind was  to  be  found  in  embryo,  as  it  were,  and  so  all 
future  generations  were  affected  by  the  first  sin. 

Original  sin  is  this  inherited  taint  in  our  nature, 
that  marring  and  spoiling  of  our  original  purity  that 
makes  us  prone  to  evil.  Just  as  the  child  of  the  con- 
sumptive is  born  with  a  physical  weakness  that  tends 
to  the  development  of  tuberculosis,  so  the  child  of  the 
drunkard  or  of  the  thief,  any  child  (for  all  have  had 
ancestors  with  some  sinful  weakness)  is  born  with  a 
perverted  nature,  with  a  tendency  to  sin,  which  may 
be  restrained  and  overcome  in  large  measure,  but 
which  is  there,  nevertheless,  and  must  be  corrected. 
Man  has  fallen  from  God,  and  must  be  won  back. 

And,  thank  God,  he  can  be  won  back,  can  be 
helped  back.  "As  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ 
shall  all  be  made  alive."  The  race  fell  because  it  was 
knit  up  into  unity  in  Adam,  its  progenitor,  and  the 
race  can  be  lifted  up  when  it  is  united  in  Christ,  its 
new  head.  We  are  confident  that  this  world  of  ours, 
scarred  with  its  battlefields,  darkened  with  its  igno- 
rance and  vice,  defiled  with  the  unceasing  impurities 


76  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

of  men,  is  yet  crowned  with  a  halo  of  light,  bathed  in 
an  atmosphere  of  holiness,  for  upon  it  stands  the 
form  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  radiating  from  Him  are 
streams  of  never-ceasing  grace.  Only  through  Jesus 
Christ  can  we  know  what  God  is.  Only  through 
Jesus  Christ  can  we  know  also  what  man  should  be. 
Only  through  Jesus  Christ  is  there  hope  that  man 
may  become  what  he  was  meant  to  be. 


THE  ATONEMENT  77 


X. 

THE  ATONEMENT 

WE  have  seen  that  man  has  a  fallen  nature.  We 
are  now  to  ask  how  that  nature  is  to  be  restored 
in  Christ.  This  brings  us  to  the  consideration,  first 
of  all,  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 
Hardly  any  article  of  the  faith  has  been  so  distorted 
and  caricatured  as  this,  so  it  may  be  well  at  the  very 
start  to  ask  what  it  really  is. 

Briefly,  the  doctrine  is  this:  That  Christ  died 
for  our  sins,  giving  His  life  a  ransom  for  us;  that 
by  His  death  upon  the  cross  He  took  away  the  sin 
of  the  world,  and  by  our  union  with  Him  we  are  re- 
stored to  the  divine  favor.  "The  death  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,"  Canon  Liddon  puts  it,  "paid  the  debt  which 
man  owed  and  which  man  of  himself  could  not  pay 
to  the  Justice  and  Sanctity  of  God.  His  obedience  to 
the  divine  will  took  the  form  of  expiation,  and 
became  a  satisfaction  for  sin  to  the  All-Just." 

It  has  been  objected  to  this  doctrine  that  since 
God  made  men  what  they  are  He  cannot  be  in  the 
position  of  demanding  reparation  for  sins  committed 
by  them  because  of  the  weakness  of  His  own  creation. 


78  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Moreover,  we  are  told  that  to  picture  God  seeking 
to  punish  men  for  their  sins,  being  turned  from  His 
wrathful  purpose  by  the  goodness  of  His  Son,  and 
accepting  the  death  of  one  person  for  the  offenses  of 
others — all  this  is  to  make  God  an  unreasonable 
tyrant  and  a  capricious  judge,  rather  than  a  merciful 
and  loving  Father. 

To  meet  these  objections,  and  to  show  how  they 
caricature  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  we  must  first 
go  back  and  look  at  that  which  made  the  Atonement 
necessary — sin.  We  are  all  conscious  of  it.  We  know 
that  we  have  sinned,  and  that  our  offense  has  not  been 
against  our  o^vn  nature  only,  or  even  against  our  fel- 
low beings,  but  that  most  of  all  we  have  grieved  and 
offended  God.  The  psalmist  wonderfully  recognizes 
this  when  he  thinks  chiefly  of  God  as  the  victim  of 
his  ill-doing.  "Against  Thee  only  have  I  sinned,  and 
done  this  evil  in  Thy  sight.''  We  have  all  sinned 
and  all  of  us  who  have  any  true  sorrow  for  sin  realize 
that  our  wrong-doing  has  not  merely  degraded  and 
injured  ourselves,  but  is  an  offense  against  God,  an 
offense,  too,  that  makes  us  deserving  of  punishment : 
when  we  have  sinned,  we  ought  to  pay  the  penalty  of 
our  sin. 

Nor  is  this  all.  When  we  seriously  think  about  it 
we  know  that  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  us  to  pay  this 
penalty.  Sin  has  made  us  displeasing  to  God  and 
we  are  in  no  position  to  make  Him  an  offering ;  every 
fresh  sin  makes  a  new  payment  necessary  and  for 
the  least  of  our  offenses — and  most  of  all,  for  the 
sum  of  them — nothing  that  we  could  offer  would  ever 


THE  ATONEMENT  79 

be  an  adequate  recompense.  Sin,  too,  has  so  dead- 
ened the  conscience  that  it  cannot  even  offer  the  satis- 
faction of  complete  penitence.  How,  then,  shall  our 
recovery  be  effected  ?  Shall  God  forgive  us  fully  and 
freely,  without  exacting  a  penalty  ?  God  can  do  that, 
of  course,  but  He  can  hardly  do  it  and  be  consistent 
with  Himself.  We  must  remember  that  God  is  not 
only  good  and  loving,  but  just  and  holy;  and  His 
justice  as  well  as  His  goodness  must  be  satisfied.  To 
allow  sin  to  go  unpunished  would  be  to  cast  justice  to 
the  winds  and  put  a  weak  sentimentality  in  its  place. 
God  is  the  Creator  of  moral  responsibility;  and 
"would  He  be  faithful  to  Himself  if,  after  having 
laid  down  these  great  principles  of  morality  in  the 
nature  and  conscience  of  man,  He  did  not  do  homage 
to  them  by  judging  men  according  to  these  rules 
which  He  Himself  has  established  ?  ''  ^ 

Nor  would  it  be  just  to  man  to  forgive  in  this 
loose,  lax,  free  fashion.  All  true  forgiveness  must 
show  sin  for  what  it  is.  If  I  forgive  my  child  for  his 
offense,  I  must,  for  his  sake  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of 
truth  and  righteousness,  forgive  him  in  such  a  way  as 
not  to  diminish  or  benumb  his  sense  of  guilt.  I  must 
not  let  my  love  and  tenderness  be  such  as  to  lead  him 
into  an  easy-going,  good-natured  carelessness.  The 
sin  must  not  be  made  to  appear  less  hateful  or  less 
painful  than  it  really  is. 

There  are,  then,  these  facts :  Man  has  sinned. 
God  is  good  and  would  forgive  him.     But  God  is  also 


Godet:     tfew  Testament  Studies. 


80  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

just  and  sin  is  hateful;  and  before  God  can  freely 
forgive  this  must  be  made  clear.  The  pardon  must 
not  be  such  as  to  obscure  God's  holiness  or  palliate 
man's  sin,  and  lest  this  should  be  the  case  some  pen- 
alty from  the  guilty  one  must  be  exacted  or  acknowl- 
edged. Sinful  man  is  incapable  of  making  the  needed 
satisfaction,  though  it  be  but  the  penalty  of  true 
penitence.  How,  then,  can  both  the  goodness  and  the 
justice  of  God  be  satisfied  ? 

Here  comes  the  Christian  answer:  Jesus  Christ, 
by  His  perfect  life  here  on  earth,  fulfilled  all  of  God's 
law.  He,  then,  is  fitted  to  make  a  sacrifice  and  pro- 
pitiation for  sin.  He  makes  the  sacrifice  for  us.  He 
became  obedient  to  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross, 
that  He  might  save  us,  who  lay  in  darkness  and  the 
shadow  of  death. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  can  such  an  offering 
avail  us?  If  God  be  perfectly  just,  how  can  He  be 
satisfied  with  one  man's  well-doing  in  propitiation  for 
another's  evil  deeds  ? 

There  are  two  ways  of  answering  these  questions. 
The  first  lies  in  a  right  apprehension  of  the  truth  of 
the  Incarnation.  The  Son  of  God,  when  He  came  on 
earth,  took  to  Himself  not  one  single  human  life  but 
human  nature  generally.  It  was  manliood  and  not 
man  that  the  Son  took  into  union  with  Himself  and 
so  when  He  suffered  on  the  cross  He  suffered  not  as 
a  single  human  being  but  as  the  representative  and 
head  of  the  race,  as  one  who  had  in  Himself  some- 
thing of  the  nature  of  every  member  of  the  race.     In 


THE  ATONEMENT  81 

one  sense,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  that  all  mankind 
suffered  in  Christ,  and  so  that  which  owed  the  debt 
paid  it.  "Taking  to  Himself  our  flesh,"  says  Hooker, 
"and  by  His  Incarnation  making  it  His  own  flesh. 
He  had  now  of  His  own  although  from  us  what  to 
offer  unto  God  for  us." 

It  does  seem,  however,  that  the  other  answer  is 
the  one  which  emphasizes  more  clearly  our  individual 
connection  with  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary.  This  second 
view  bids  us  remember  that  a  sufficient  satisfaction 
for  sin  is  found  in  the  offender's  real  penitence.  God 
would  not  exact  any  other  penalty,  if  that  could  be 
offered;  He  would  let  the  penalty  pass,  if  once  the 
right  to  exact  it  were  seen  and  acknowledged.  From 
the  first  moment  of  the  fall,  man  had  failed  to  com- 
prehend, as  God  would  have  him  see  it,  the  awfulness 
of  sin.  If  he  could  once  be  made  to  see  that,  if  he 
could  be  brought  to  a  humble  and  penitent  acknowl- 
edgment of  His  position  as  under  the  condemnation 
of  death,  then  God's  justice  would  be  appeased.  As 
Godet  puts  it:  "That  which  God  desired  was  not 
the  satisfaction  of  the  demands  of  His  justice  by  the 
effusion  of  torrents  of  blood;  it  was  the  revelation  to 
the  conscience  of  men  of  those  demands  which  they 
had  refused  to  recognize ;  it  was  the  willing  acknowl- 
edgment of  them  by  that  conscience  itself.  And  why 
was  this  ?  Because  herein  lies  the  true  restitution  for 
wrong  committed ;  and  herein,  consequently,  the  true 
basis  for  the  reestablishment  of  moral  order  when  it 
has  been  disturbed.  When  the  will  which  disturbed 
it  has  once  convinced  itself  of  having  been  in  the 


82  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

wrong,  and  has  passed  sentence  of  death  upon  itself, 
then  order  has  triumphed  in  the  midst  of  the  world 
of  disorder.  God  can  the  more  easily  relax  the  de- 
mands of  His  justice,  when  the  righteousness  of  those 
demands  has  been  recognized  by  the  transgressor."  ' 

We  can  see  how  Christ's  sacrifice  accomplishes 
this.  Just  as  human  forgiveness  in  its  best  forms 
is  saved  from  being  demoralizing  when  the  forgiven 
child  has  been  made  to  see  the  pain  given  by  its  fault 
to  the  forgiving  parent,  so  we  discover  the  awful 
analogue  of  this,  when  divine  forgiveness  comes  in- 
deed freely,  but  comes  by  divine  Love  itself  bearing, 
before  our  eyes,  our  sins  or  their  results.  Jesus 
Christ  came  into  the  world.  He  lived  here  the  perfect 
life  God  has  designed  for  men,  He  was  absolutely 
without  sin,  and  when  He  was  put  to  death  men  saw 
the  enormity  of  sin  in  all  its  horror.  If  sin  did  that, 
they  must  say,  as  they  looked  at  the  cross — if  sin  did 
that,  or  if  sin  be  so  hateful  in  God's  sight  as  to  make 
such  a  sacrifice  necessary — then  we  begin  to  see  what 
we  deserve  for  our  transgressions.  "Come  down  from 
the  cross,  0  Thou  Holy  One  of  God,"  we  can  say, 
"come  down  from  the  cross,  it  is  I  that  should  be 
there,  not  Thou."  In  the  death  of  Christ,  and  in 
nothing  else,  we  can  see  the  aw^ulness  of  sin  and  can 
be  brought  to  acknowledge  the  penalty  that  is  its  due ; 
there,  and  nowhere  else,  the  pain  and  shame  of  sin 
are  awakened ;  there  its  full  horror  is  at  last  realized ; 
there  we  are  convinced  of  our  own  guilt,  "pricked  at 


^Godet:     New  Testament  Studies. 


THE  ATONEMENT  83 

the  heart";  there,  in  the  supreme  moment  of  forgive- 
ness, we  find  that  the  forgiveness  is  made  possible 
because  now  we  see  sin  through  the  eyes  of  God. 

Since  the  Great  War  began  to  burn  its  lessons  into 
men's  souls,  it  has  been  easier  to  feel,  even  though  one 
cannot  understand,  how  the  death  of  Christ  forwarded 
God's  purposes  for  mankind.  The  bulk  of  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  war  has  been  sacrificial  and  the  law  which 
was  fulfilled  in  Christ's  passion  has  been  receiving  a 
fresh  fulfilment  in  the  sufferings  of  millions  of  His 
brethren.  One  of  the  compensations  of  the  war  has 
been  that  its  wealth  of  self-giving  has  shed  upon  life 
a  new  glory  and  given  it  a  new  meaning.  Its  awful 
cloud  has  been  tinged  with  the  silver  lining  of  a 
splendid  sacrifice  and  that  sacrifice,  like  Christ's,  has 
been  a  vicarious  offering.  Men  have  been  giving  of 
themselves,  of  all  they  possess  and  all  they  hold  dear, 
simply  for  the  sake  of  humanity.  A  distinguished 
professor  of  Oxford  has  told  us  how,  day  by  day,  he 
was  haunted  by  the  thought  that  men  were  dying  for 
him ;  young  men,  noble  men,  men  whom  he  knew  and 
loved  were  laying  do^vn  their  lives  that  he  and  others 
might  be  free.  "It  solemnizes  me,"  he  wrote,  "and 
gives  me  a  new  insight  into  the  mystery  and  glory  of 
life." 

Ah,  yes !  "A  God  indifferent  to  the  cries  of  a 
world  in  distress  can  be  to  us  no  God  at  all.  Unlike 
the  serene  and  indifferent  gods  of  the  pagan  world, 
the  God  of  Christianity  is  a  God  who  sympathizes 
with  men.     In  all  their  affliction  He  is  afflicted.    He 


84  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

carries  their  woes  on  His  infinite  heart.  In  days  when 
multitudes  of  hearts  are  sorely  troubled,  where  shall 
we  obtain  relief?  In  the  thought  that  the  Eternal 
suffers  with  us.  It  is  the  inexorable  demand  of  our 
heart  that  the  God  of  the  universe  shall  carry  a  cross ! 
Those  young  men  who  have  died — not  for  themselves, 
but  for  others — were  symbols  of  the  suffering  of  Christ 
as  they  offered  their  vicarious  sacrifice.  They  entered 
by  their  dying  as  a  permanent  force  into  the  life  of 
the  world.  They  have  made  it  easier  for  others  to 
live.  They  have  added  a  brightness  to  the  skies  which 
bend  over  their  graves."  ' 

All  this  is  but  man's  feeble  thought  about  the 
Atonement.  We  must  not  forget  that  after  all  we 
cannot  expect  to  understand  very  clearly  its  great 
mystery.  "How,  or  in  what  particular  way,  Christ's 
death  was  eflScacious,  there  are  not  wanting  people 
who  have  endeavored  to  explain  but  I  do  not  find  that 
Scripture  explains  it,"  said  Bishop  Butler,  and  Bishop 
Alexander  calls  that  sentence  one  of  the  wisest  in  all 
theology.  After  all,  there  is  one  thing  only  that  we 
are  certain  of  about  the  Atonement.  Whatever  else 
we  know,  whatever  we  guess  at,  whatever  we  doubt, 
this  one  thing  is  beyond  cavil:  the  exceeding  great 
love  of  the  cross.  It  shows  us,  not  an  angry  Father 
propitiated  by  a  loving  Son  but  Father  and  Son,  to- 
gether, out  of  the  infinite  affection  of  an  infinitely 
loving  heart,  cooperating  in  procuring  man's  salva- 


« Jefferson:     Old  Truths  and  New  Facts. 


THE  ATONEMENT  85 

tion.  The  Son  gladly  comes  to  save;  the  Father  as 
gladly  sends  Him.  The  cross  is,  for  both,  the  out- 
pouring of  love  immeasurable.  In  its  presence  we 
bow  in  adoration  and  worship ;  for  its  blessing  we  lift 
up  the  voice  of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  Once  we 
have  felt  its  power,  we  can  hardly  lose  faith  or  hope  or 
grateful  affection.  Its  message  rings  down  the  ages, 
and  it  is  a  message  that  tells  us  ever  the  same  story : 
"God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only- 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should 
not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life."  "Herein  is  love, 
not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent 
His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins." 


86  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XI. 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  THE  LIFE-GIVER 

WE  should  have  a  very  one-sided  view  of  the 
Atonement,  were  we  to  regard  it  simply  as  the 
work  of  Jesus  Christ  for  us.  There  is  also  a  work  to 
be  done  in  us. 

The  author  of  this  work  is  God  the  Holy  Ghost. 
He  is  the  Other  Advocate  sent  from  the  Father  by 
the  Son,  to  take  Christ's  place  with  His  people  and  to 
finish  our  redemption.  In  succeeding  chapters,  which 
will  treat  of  the  Church  and  the  sacramental  system, 
we  shall  see  how  God  the  Holy  Ghost  works  within 
us,  sanctifying  us  and  fitting  us  for  the  heavenly  life. 
Here  we  shall  first  try  to  learn  something  of  His 
person  and  office. 

To  understand  this,  we  go  direct  to  the  Holy  of 
Holies,  the  inmost  sanctuary  of  Holy  Scripture,  our 
Lord's  beautiful  and  tender  address  to  His  apostles 
on  the  night  before  He  suffered.  On  this  occasion 
Jesus  spake  plainly  and  fully  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Heretofore  there  had  been  many  references  in  His 
teaching  to  the  Third  Person  of  the  adorable  Trinity 
and  such  references  had  gradually  become  more  and 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  THE  LIFE-GIVER  87 

more  clear,  but  here  we  reach  the  very  heart  of  our 
Lord's  teaching  about  the  Spirit.  He  is  spoken  of  as 
the  other  Comforter,  who  was  to  take  Christ's  place 
and  abide  wdth  His  disciples  forever.  Though  un- 
known to  the  world,  He  was  already  known  to  the 
apostles,  for  He  was  with  them  and  one  day  would  be 
in  them.  He  would  not  only  teach  them  all  things, 
but  would  remind  them  of  all  that  Jesus  had  taught. 
He,  the  Spirit  of  truth  proceeding  from  the  Father, 
would  be  sent  to  them  by  the  Son  and  so  full  of  bless- 
ing would  His  advent  be  that  it  would  be  better  for 
them  to  be  without  Christ's  visible  presence  than  to 
be  without  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Through 
Him  the  world  would  realize  its  sinfulness  and  its 
need ;  through  Him  it  would  learn  what  righteousness 
is  and  would  have  a  sense  of  coming  Judgment; 
through  Him  the  disciples  would  be  guided  into  all 
truth;  through  Him  the  Son  of  Man  would  be 
glorified.^ 

So  far  as  they  were  then  able  to  enter  into  this 
teaching  the  apostles  must  have  learned  that  the  place 
of  Jesus  Christ  would  be  supplied  by  an  invisible 
Person,  whose  teaching  would  be  entirely  concerned 
with  one  subject,  Jesus  Christ,  and  whose  mission 
would  be  to  make  the  world  understand  and  know 
Him. 

As  these  were  the  last  words  spoken  by  our  Lord 
to  His  Church  before  He  suffered,  so  the  first  words 
after  His  resurrection  were  concerned  with  the  same 


^  See  especially  St.  John  xiv.  16-17;  xiv.  26;  xv.  26;  xvi. 
7,  9-11,  13-14. 


88  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

subject.  On  Easter  Day  He  gave  the  apostles  the 
gift  He  had  promised,  by  breathing  on  them,  explain- 
ing His  action  by  the  words,  "Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Ghost."  The  Holy  Spirit  now  took  possession  of  the 
Church  of  God,  indwelling  it  and  so  enabling  it  to 
exercise  the  power  of  loosing  from  sin,  a  gift  which 
it  was  soon  dispatched  into  the  world  to  minister 
through  baptism  into  the  Triune  Name. 

We  pass  now  to  the  teaching  of  the  apostles.  It 
was  doubtless  difficult  for  them  to  realize  the  person- 
ality of  One  whom  they  had  not  seen  and  could  not 
see.  They  were  brought  to  this  realization,  therefore, 
by  the  complete  manifestation  of  the  presence  of  the 
Spirit  given  them  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  when  in 
fulfilment  of  our  Lord's  promise  a  sound  of  a  rush- 
ing mighty  wind  was  heard  and  filled  the  whole  house 
where  they  were  sitting,  the  sight  of  a  sheet  of  flame 
divided  into  tongues  was  seen,  and  an  intense  spiritual 
exhilaration  and  enthusiasm  possessed  the  apostles. 
Some  time  after,  when  the  disciples  had  undergone 
persecution,  a  similar  manifestation  occurred,  the 
house  where  they  were  assembled  being  shaken  and 
their  feelings  again  strangely  elevated,  so  that  they 
were  able  to  speak  the  word  with  all  boldness. 

It  was  now  increasingly  felt  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
dwelt  in  the  whole  body  of  the  faithful.  To  attempt 
to  deceive  the  Church,  as  did  Ananias  and  his  wife, 
was  to  try  to  deceive  the  Holy  Ghost.  To  resist  the 
doctrine  of  the  Church  was  to  resist  the  Holy  Ghost. 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  THE  LIFE-GIVER  89 

The  word  of  the  Church  was  the  word  of  the  Spirit/ 
Further,  it  was  believed  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
ordinarily  given  by  the  laying  on  of  hands,  though 
He  was  not  tied  to  this  means.  Any  divine  inspira- 
tion was  felt  to  be  His.  The  intuitive  feeling  to  set 
aside  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  their  work  was  felt  to  be 
a  movement  from  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  two  went 
upon  their  mission  with  the  conviction  that  they  were 
sent  by  Him.  St.  Philip  is  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  take  a  particular  road  and  join  the  chariot  of  the 
eunuch;  St.  Paul  is  forbidden  by  the  same  divine 
Person  to  extend  his  work  into  Asia;  he  is  warned, 
also,  by  the  Spirit  of  what  would  happen  to  him  in 
Jerusalem. 

From  such  facts  it  is  clear  what  our  Lord  meant 
by  saying  to  His  followers  that  He  would  give  them 
another  Comforter.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  here  seen  to 
be  taking  the  place  of  the  Lord  Christ.  He  is  to  the 
Church  of  the  Acts  what  Christ  was  to  the  first  dis- 
ciples. He  gives  comfort,  joy,  courage,  advice,  and 
warning,  and  He  does  all  as  the  Spirit  of  Jesus. 

In  the  Epistles  we  find  doctrinally  what  the  Book 
of  the  Acts  tells  us  historically.  St.  Paul  speaks  of 
the  assistance  which  the  Holy  Ghost  renders  us  in  our 
spiritual  life  in  helping  our  prayers,  of  the  assurance 
of  sonship  which  He  gives,  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
which  He  imparts,  of  His  indwelling  us,  so  that  our 
bodies  become  His  temple,  of  the  various  gifts  He 

^  See  Acts  v.  3-4;  Acts  vii.  51  compared  with  ix.  31;  Acts 
XV.  28. 


90  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ministers  to  us,  of  the  danger  of  grieving  Him.  In 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  the  Old  Testament  is  said 
to  be  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  while  St.  James 
speaks  of  His  longing  to  make  ns  His  own,  St.  Jude 
of  His  being  the  power  in  which  we  pray,  St.  Peter 
of  His  moving  holy  men  of  old  in  their  scriptural 
messages  and  of  His  power  in  stirring  up  the  prophets 
to  search  into  the  deeper  meaning  of  their  own  dark 
sayings.  Finally,  St.  John  speaks  of  the  message  of 
the  Spirit  to  the  seven  churches,  of  His  confirmation 
of  the  voice  from  heaven,  of  His  communion  with  the 
Church,  and  of  His  symbolic  manifestation  as  the 
seven  spirits  seen  before  the  throne  in  the  vision  on 
Patmos." 

It  is  a  modern  tendency  to  regard  the  revelation 
of  the  Spirit  as  impersonal.  Language  is  used  which 
would  imply  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  divine  mode  or 
faculty  or  influence.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
the  truth.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  not  only  divine.  He  is 
a  divine  Person. 

(1)  He  is  divine.  This  is  so  plain  in  Scripture 
that  he  who  runs  may  read.  There  is  little  use  to 
do  more  than  touch  on  the  evidence  of  the  fact.  We 
know  that  He  is  God  because  divine  attributes  are 
ascribed  to  Him.  He  is  eternal  (Hebrews  ix.  14), 
omniscient  (I  Cor.  ii.  10),  omnipotent  (St.  Luke 
i.  35),  omnipresent  (Psalm  cxxxix.  1),  all  sovereign 


2  See  Acts  viii.  16;  ix.  17;  xix.  6;  xiii.  2;  xiii.  4;  viii.  29; 
xvi.  6-7;  Romans  viii.  26;  viii.  14,  16;  I  Cor.  ii.  9;  iii.  16; 
vi.  19;  xii.  11;  Eph.  iv.  30;  I  St.  Timothy  iv.  1;  Hebrews  iii. 
7  and  ix.  8;  St.  James  iv.  5;  I  St.  Peter  i,  11,  etc. 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  THE  LIFE-GIVER  91 

(I  Cor.  xii.  11).  Failure  to  recognize  Him  is  failure 
to  recognize  God  (Acts  v.  4;  I  Cor.  iii.  16)  ;  blas- 
phemy against  Him  is  worse  than  blasphemy  against 
the  Son  (St.  Matthew  xii.  31-32)  ;  to  lie  to  Him  is 
to  lie  to  God  (Acts  v.  4) ;  our  bodies,  because  they  are 
the  temple  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  are  the  temple  of  God 
(I  Cor.  vi.  19  and  II  Cor.  vi.  6).  Plainest  of  all,  as 
showing  His  divinity,  is  the  fact  that  in  the  baptismal 
formula  and  the  apostolic  benediction  divine  homage 
is  rendered  to  Him  as  to  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

(2)  He  is  not  only  divine.  He  is  a  divine  Person. 
The  central  and  decisive  passage  of  Scripture,  the 
address  at  the  Last  Supper,  is  sufficient  proof  of  this. 
"There  we  have  the  Holy  Ghost  revealed  to  us  in  so 
many  words  as  Him,  not  only  as  It ;  as  the  living  and 
conscious  Exerciser  of  true  personal  will  and  love. 
And  this  central  passage  radiates  out  its  glory  upon 
the  whole  system  and  circle  of  Scripture  truth  about 
the  Spirit."  * 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  not  a  mere  abstraction:  else 
how  should  we  be  told  of  His  personal  acts,  that  He 
"maketh  intercession  for  us",  that  He  is  the  true 
author  of  our  "diversities  of  gifts",  "dividing  to  every 
man  severally  as  He  will",  that  He  may  be  sinned 
against,  that  such  sin  "grieves"  Him  ?  How  could  it 
be  said  of  an  impersonal  influence  that  it  was  sinned 
against,  or  grieved  ?  When  our  Lord  says,  "The  Holy 
Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  My  Name,  He 
wall  guide  you  into  all  truth,"  we  have  clearly  set 


Moule:     Veni  Creator. 


92  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

forth  in  that  one  short  sentence  the  distinct  person- 
ality of  each  of  the  members  of  the  Triune  Godhead. 

This  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life. 
The  first  chapters  of  the  Bible  show  Him  to  us  as  the 
giver  of  physical  life,  moving  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters  and  bringing  order  out  of  chaos  and  renewing 
again  the  earth  after  the  flood.  No  less  is  He  giver 
of  intellectual  life,  sending  skill  and  understanding 
to  the  architects  of  the  tabernacle,  supplying  the  wis- 
dom of  Moses,  moving  and  inspiring  the  prophets. 

So,  too.  He  is  the  author  of  the  new  creation,  the 
giver  of  spiritual  life.  It  is  by  His  overshadowing  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin  that  a  new  point  of  departure  is 
inaugurated  in  the  Incarnation.  He  it  is,  also,  who 
briQgs  about  the  new  birth  in  man.  We  are  "born 
again  by  water  and  the  Holy  Ghost";  we  are  saved 
through  "the  washing  of  regeneration  and  renewing 
of  the  Holy  Ghost";  we  are  washed,  sanctified,  "in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  in  the  Spirit  of  our 
God."  "By  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one 
body,"  and  "the  love  of  God  is  shed  abroad  in  our 
hearts  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  "As  many  as  are  led  by 
the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are  the  sons  of  God."  "And 
because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit 
of  His  Son  into  our  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father." 

The  Holy  Ghost  it  is,  then,  who  imparts  the  spark 
of  the  new  spiritual  fire  within  us;  He  quickens  and 
re-kindles  it  by  His  grace;  He  inspires  us  with  holy 
desires,  and  when  we  sin  renews  us  to  repentance; 
in  a  word.  He  "sanctifieth  us  and  all  the  people  of 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT.  THE  LIFE-GIVER  93 

God."  To  Him,  then,  we  owe  peculiar  love  and 
adoration  as  the  Lord  and  the  Life-Giver.  May  it  be 
our  constant  prayer  not  to  resist  His  gracious  influ- 
ence, lest  by  our  indifference  and  neglect  we  "grieve" 
and  "quench"  the  Spirit,  and  drive  Him  away  as  He 
comes  to  make  our  bodies  His  temple,  the  dwelling 
place  of  His  glory. 


94  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XII. 
THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER 

FEAYER  is  bringing  God  and  the  soul  together 
and  leaving  them  alone.  I  like  that  definition 
better  than  any  other.  Prayer  is  the  effort  of  the 
human  spirit  to  have  conscious  companionship  with 
the  Divine  Spirit.  For  that  reason  prayer  is  the  most 
difficult  thing  in  the  world. 

It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  know  any  one.  With 
how  many  persons  are  you  intimately  acquainted? 
It  is  only  now  and  then,  after  long  friendship  and 
close  association  and  under  the  impulse  of  respect  or 
admiration  or  love,  that  we  go  beyond  the  partial 
manifestations  of  character  to  the  personality  behind 
them.  Prayer  is  the  effort  to  know  God.  Private 
prayer  means  trying  to  know  Him  well  enough  to 
speak  to  Him  simply  and  naturally.  Of  course  that 
could  not  be  easy. 

What  makes  prayer  still  more  difficult  is  that  God 
is  invisible.  It  is  so  hard  to  appreciate  the  actuality 
of  the  unseen. 

There  are  steps  by  which  we  may  approach  to 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  95 

certainty  of  God's  unseen  presence.  We  can  hardly 
look  about  us  without  feeling  that  there  must  be  some 
unseen  energy  or  activity  behind  the  visible  creation. 
That  may  be  impersonal  energy,  of  course,  but  we 
can  hardly  think  so,  if  we  try  to  reason  about  it  in 
exactly  the  way  we  reason  about  human  activity. 
All  that  you  see  of  a  man  is  the  outward  part  of  him, 
but  his  actions  tell  of  a  personal  spirit  within,  the 
source  and  spring  of  his  outward  activity  and  power. 
You  see  his  body,  but  you  cannot  see  the  man  himself, 
the  inner  spirit.  One  makes  the  leap  from  nature  to 
God  just  as  one  moves  naturally  and  inevitably  from 
the  thought  of  human  activity  to  the  thought  of 
human  personality.  God  is  behind  and  within  and 
all  through  nature  as  the  spirit  is  within  the  body. 
God  is  not  simply  an  impersonal  influence,  nor  is  God 
identical  with  His  world.     He  is  the  Soul  of  things. 

It  is  a  fatal  defect  of  modern  religious  thought 
that  it  tends  to  regard  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  divine  in- 
fluence or  a  divine  mode  or  faculty.  We  have  many 
prayers  addressed  to  the  Father  or  to  the  Son,  but  all 
too  seldom  a  prayer  addressed  to  the  Spirit.  Yet  the 
simplest  way  to  begin  to  pray  is  to  think,  and  think 
hard,  of  God  as  Spirit  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the 
living  and  conscious  Exerciser  of  personal  will  and 
power  and  love. 

Breathe  on  me,  Breath  of  God, 

Till  I  am  wholly  Thine, 
Till  all  this  earthly  part  of  me 

Glows  with  Thy  fire  divine. 


96  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Breathe  on  me,  Breath  of  God, 

Fill  me  with  life  anew; 
That  I  may  love  what  Thou  dost  love 

And  do  what  Thou  wouldst  do. 

Breathe  on  me.  Breath  of  God, 

Until  my  heart  is  pure. 
Until  with  Thee  I  will  one  will 

To  do  or  to  endure. 

Breathe  on  me,  Breath  of  God, 

So  shall  I  never  die; 
But  live  with  Thee  the  perfect  love 

Of  Thine  Eternity. 

Prayer,  then,  is  intercourse  with  the  unseen  God. 
It  is  not  petition  only,  though  petition  is  a  part  of 
prayer.  It  need  not  follow  any  fixed  form,  though 
form  may  be  evidence  of  reverent  thought.  It  need 
not  even  be  speech  with  God — we  can  pray  without 
words.  It  is  the  establishing  of  personal  relationship 
with  the  Divine  Companion. 

There  are  difficulties  innumerable  once  we  begin 
to  discuss  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  Why  should  God 
make  His  gifts  depend  upon  our  petitions  ?  ^Yhat  is 
the  real  relation  between  prayer  and  human  effort? 
How  can  prayer  be  reconciled  with  the  reign  of  law  ? 
How  can  our  prayers  help  anybody  but  ourselves? 
What  about  the  seemingly  unanswered  prayers  of  good 
people  ?  Elsewhere  I  have  tried  to  face  some  of  these 
difficulties  frankly  and  honestly.  I  am  obliged  now 
to  make  choice  between  going  again  into  the  whole 
question  of  the  reasonableness  of  prayer  and  simply 
dealing  practically  with  prayer  as  a  habit  and  I  choose 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  97 

the  latter  course  and  refer  my  readers  to  other  books 
for  the  apologetic  side  of  the  subject/ 

Remember  that  the  heart  and  soul  of  the  Christian 
religion  is  the  belief  that  God  was  once  revealed  in 
Christ,  a  divine  Person  who  manifested  Himself  to 
men  and  before  He  disappeared  from  sight  pledged 
His  continued  presence  with  them,  a  presence  unseen 
but  no  less  real  than  was  His  presence  while  He  was 
here  on  earth.  Remember  that  the  early  disciples  who 
had  seen  Him  in  the  days  of  His  flesh  were  so  certain 
of  His  continued  presence  in  succeeding  days  that 
nothing  could  shake  their  faith.  Before  you  begin  to 
pray,  think  of  this  revelation  in  Christ — think  until 
He  becomes  real  for  you.  In  other  words,  get  abso- 
lutely alone  and  practise  the  presence  of  God. 

All  this  is  difficult,  of  course.  Did  we  not  say 
that  prayer  is  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world? 
But  it  is  v/orth  while  making  every  possible  effort; 
for  without  prayer  other  means  of  grace  are  hindered 
in  their  operation.  Prayer,  some  one  has  said,  breaks 
up  the  ground  of  the  soul,  so  that  the  Sower  can  sow 
the  seed  of  His  own  personality  in  it.  Difficult? 
Yes,  to  be  sure.  It  means  spending  some  time  with 
God,  a  long  time  if  need  be.  It  takes  a  long  time  to 
get  close  enough  to  any  friend  to  be  able  to  understand 


^  See  chapter  ix.  of  my  book,  The  Experiment  of  Faith; 
also  chapter  vii.  of  Back  to  Christ.  Any  one  who  wishes  to 
go  into  the  matter  deeply  and  thoroughly  should  read  a 
collection  of  essays  by  English  Churchmen,  entitled  Con- 
cerning Prayer.  See  also,  Slattery:  Why  Men  Pray,  and 
some  practical  books  on  Prayer  by  Carey,  Fosdick,  McComb, 
and  others. 


98  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

him  and  absorb  his  strength.  It  takes  a  long  time  to 
get  close  enough  to  God  to  have  Him  change  the  whole 
tone  and  temper  of  our  lives.  If  you  cannot  pray 
long,  break  up  your  prayers  into  short  petitions  and 
say  each  of  them  with  the  greatest  care  and  earnest- 
ness. Do  not  expect  that  God  will  hear  you,  if  you 
yourself  do  not  attend.  Shut  out  earthly  thoughts 
and  try  hard  to  think  His  thoughts.  "Show  Thou 
me  the  way  that  I  should  walk  in,  for  I  lift  up  my 
soul  unto  Thee." 

Failure  in  prayer  is  due  also  to  the  fact  that  most 
people  have  never  been  taught  how  to  pray.  We  have 
been  told  that  we  must  speak  to  God,  but  we  have 
never  been  told  how  to  speak  with  Him.  Indeed,  it 
is  not  easy  to  tell  some  one  else  how  you  do  a  thing, 
because  what  helps  one  man  may  not  help  another. 
Suppose  we  start  with  some  such  method  as  this : 

We  begin  by  recollecting  God's  presence  and  then 
start  with  confession : 

God,  I  am  kneeling  here  in  Your  presence.  I  want  You  to 
look  at  me  and  tell  me  just  what  You  think  of  me.  Help 
me  to  think  out  these  thoughts  after  You.  Show  me  my 
weaknesses,  my  shortcomings,  my  inconsistencies.  Show  me 
the  things  about  myself  of  which  You  most  disapprove,  the 
sins  that  are  a  lawless  disregard  of  Your  wishes  and  pur- 
poses for  me  and  an  offense  against  the  ordered  harmony  of 
Your  world. 

That  is  confession.     Then  go  on  to  adoration : 

God,  show  me  what  You  are.  Help  me  to  think  quietly 
and  seriously  until  I  get  a  clear  idea  of  what  You  must  be, 
in  Your  purity  and  holiness,  Your  power,  Your  justice.  Your 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  99 

stern  hatred  of  evil,  Your  pity,  Your  love.  Help  me  to 
understand  the  strength  and  splendor  of  an  All-Holy  Being 
who  is  all  that  the  best  of  men  and  women  are  and  a  million 
times  more  besides.  Help  me  to  be  very  still  now  while  T 
think  about  You. 

That  is  adoration. 

Now  begin  to  tell  God  what  you  know  about  your- 
self ;  what  you  would  like  to  be,  what  you  ought  to  do. 
Ask  Him  to  help  you  to  be  what  He  would  have  you. 

Then  tell  Him  of  the  things  you  want,  things  you 
actually  need  for  your  health,  comfort,  peace,  and 
happiness.  Ask  Him  to  give  them  to  you,  if  He  too 
thinks  they  are  good  for  you  to  have. 

Don't  forget  to  thank  Him  for  all  He  has  given 
you.  Think  about  your  health,  your  friends,  your 
natural  blessings,  your  special  advantages,  your 
social  blessings,  your  talents  and  opportunities  and 
responsibilities. 

Then  bring  to  Him  the  needs  of  others,  your 
family  and  the  friends  who  make  your  life  worth 
living.  When  you  have  done  this,  ask  Him  to  enlarge 
the  circle  of  your  interests  and  tell  Him  about  the 
needs  of  the  community,  the  Church,  the  nation,  the 
world.  Bring  to  Him,  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  how 
keenly  and  deeply  you  feel  it,  the  world's  sorrow  and 
the  world's  sin. 

Ask  Him  to  show  others  their  need  of  Him,  as  He 
has  shown  you  your  need.  Ask  Him  to  make  them 
ashamed  of  their  sin  and  neglect  of  Him.  Ask  Him 
to  make  them  conscious  of  His  goodness  and  His 
power.     Ask  Him  to  help  men  everywhere  to  serve 


100  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Him  faithfully  until  His  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it 
is  in  heaven  and  His  purpose  for  men  be  everywhere 
accomplished. 

Then  ask  God  to  show  you  how  you  can  work  for 
the  accomplishment  of  some  of  the  things  you  have 
asked  Him  to  do  and  resolve  that  what  you  are  clearly 
shown  you  will  start  at  once  to  do. 

Before  you  close,  take  another  moment  for  rec- 
ollection of  His  presence  and  then  tell  Him  again 
that  you  realize  your  unworthiness,  and  that  you  take 
courage  to  speak  to  Him  because  you  believe  in  Jesus 
Christ  and  all  for  which  He  stood,  and  are  trying  to 
ask  only  what  you  believe  Jesus  Christ  would  like  to 
have  you  ask  and  be  willing  that  you  should  work  for. 
Tell  Him  that  you  know  you  are  not  worthy  to  offer 
any  petition  unless  it  be  offered  in  union  with  His 
sacrifice.  Eemember  that  whether  you  understand 
prayer  or  not,  you  pray  because  Christ  prayed.  I 
think  He  knew. 

! 

I  do  not  know  whether  this  is  the  way  in  which 
you  will  learn  to  pray.  I  only  know  that  it  is  the 
way  in  which  I  learned.  I  suppose,  too,  that  for  many 
people  it  will  seem  a  rather  large  programme.  Do  as 
much  of  it  as  you  can.  Try  out  a  little  bit  of  it  at  a 
time.  In  the  end  you  will  not  find  the  whole  pro- 
gramme quite  as  formidable  as  it  looks.  At  any  rate, 
the  plan  will  suggest  several  things  about  prayer  which 
we  need  to  remember  if  our  prayers  are  to  have  any 
reality. 

First,  it  shows  us  that  essentially  prayer  is  inter- 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  101 

course  with  a  divine  Person.  Sometimes  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ  seems  hard  to  grasp  because  it  is  so 
profound,  but  really  it  is  easy  to  grasp  because  it  is  so 
absolutely  human.  We  ourselves  are  persons  and  we 
know  that  our  hearts  are  always  feeding  on  the  hearts 
of  other  men.  Your  character  is  that  on  which  an- 
other man  draws,  consciously  or  unconsciously.  "A 
man's  courage,  a  man's  insight,  a  man's  experience,  a 
man's  form  of  character,  these  things  flow  down  to 
weaker  souls  as  surely  as  water  flows  down  from  a 
height  above."  There  are  men  in  whose  presence  we 
cannot  be  weak  or  cowardly,  just  because  character 
cannot  be  confined  and  personality  cannot  be  pressed 
within  close  limits.  The  mind  gets  its  power  as  the 
body  gets  its  strength,  from  what  it  feeds  on;  and 
such  men  are  always  feeding  other  men.  The  wonder- 
ful thing  about  God's  personality  is  that  it,  too,  is 
outflowing.  The  pity  is,  that  we  have  dammed  up 
the  channels  through  which  the  stream  of  His  life 
flows  into  ours. 

The  method  of  prayer  recommended  suggests  also 
that  God  often  answers  prayer  through  human  agents 
and  in  human  work.  The  skill  and  understanding  of 
the  physician;  the  new  health  laws  which  medical 
science  is  constantly  discovering ;  above  all,  the  deeper 
sympathy  with  the  world's  pain  and  the  quickened 
desire  to  help  which  have  lightened  to  such  an  extent 
the  world's  burden — who  knows  what  part  prayer  has 
had  in  all  this?  The  spirit  of  social  service  which 
has  brought  light  into  so  many  dark  places  and  made 
human  life  so  much  less  unendurable — who  can  say 


102  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

how  much  prayer  had  to  do  with  the  enlightenment? 
The  new  sense  of  corporate  responsibility,  with  its 
education  towards  a  better  industrial  order — has 
prayer  had  nothing  to  do  with  opening  our  eyes  there  ? 
There  is  indeed  an  "intercession  which  is  cooperation 
with  God/'  and  God  has  been  showing  us  many  things 
of  late  of  which  the  world  has  long  been  ignorant. 
The  growth  of  the  social  spirit  as  a  late  fruit  of  Chris- 
tianity may  "make  possible  the  rebirth  of  a  Christian 
community  which  can  become  the  strongest  force  in 
the  world/'  and  prayer  pointed  out  the  path  of 
progress/ 

Next :  the  condition  of  prayer  is  that  it  shall  be  in 
Christ's  name.  "Whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  the  Father 
in  My  name,  He  will  give  it  you/'  is  His  promise. 
Our  intentions  and  desires  should  be  in  harmony  with 
that  revelation  which  His  life  gives.  The  condition 
that  He  requires  is  not  fulfilled  merely  by  adding  a 
formal  mention  of  His  mediation,  "Through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord,"  at  the  conclusion  of  our  petitions. 
We  are  bound  to  enter  into  union  with  Him  and  *^et 
this  mind  be  in  [us]  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus." 
This  implies  real  repentance,  an  honest  purpose  of 
amendment  of  life,  and  a  steadfast  desire  and  effort  to 
be  like  Him. 

Praying  in  His  name  also  means  that  the  soul 
approaches  God  through  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ. 
One  of  the  English  chaplains  urges  the  use  of  an 
ancient  and  popular  method  of  prayer  long  since  for- 

^  Concerning  Prayer:  Its  Nature,  Its  Difficulties,  and 
Its  Value. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  103 

gotten  among  us,  which  he  found  most  helpful  in 
teaching  his  men  the  power  of  Christ's  mediation. 
By  it  each  great  event  in  our  Lord's  life  is  taken 
separately  and  in  order  and  pleaded  before  Him: 

By  Thy  Holy  Nativity  in  Bethlehem,  save  us  and  help 
us,  O  Lord. 

By  Thy  Baptism  in  the  River  Jordan,  save  us  and  help 
us,  O  Lord. 

By  Thy  Fasting  and  Temptation,  save  us  and  help  us, 
O  Lord. 

By  Thine  Agony  on  the  Cross,  save  us  and  help  us,  0 
Lord. 

By  Thy  Precious  Death  and  Burial,  save  us  and  help  us, 
O  Lord. 

By  Thy  Glorious  Resurrection  and  Ascension,  save  us 
and  help  us,  O  Lord. 

By  Thy  Pleading  for  us  in  Heaven,  save  us  and  help  us, 
O  Lord. 

People  in  these  days  are  just  as  unaccustomed  to 
original  devotion  and  just  as  discouraged  in  attempt- 
ing longer  prayers  as  were  people  in  the  "ages  of 
ignorance".  How  many  who  have  read  this  chapter 
have  felt  that  the  programme  already  laid  down  is  im- 
possible for  them?  A  simple  devotion  like  this, 
therefore,  which  all  can  remember,  ought  to  be  help- 
ful. It  can  be  used  anywhere  or  at  any  time.  It 
embodies  the  chief  events  in  our  Lord's  life  and  as 
they  are  meditated  upon  even  in  this  simple  way  they 
come  to  have  new  meaning  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
use  the  intercession.  "Men  have  told  me,"  says  the 
chaplain,  "that  they  have  used  it  even  during  a  charge. 
Men  who  wanted  to  pray  and  did  not  know  how,  have 
found  this  something  which  they  can  enter  into  and 


104  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

understand  and  never  outgrow.  It  creates  an  atmos- 
phere of  religion  vigorous  enough  to  withstand  the 
spiritually  depressing  atmosphere  of  the  world.  It 
keeps  boys  from  forgetting  the  religious  instruction 
they  received  in  school.  In  the  hospital  one  day  I 
found  a  man  using  the  ^chaplet'.  He  was  full  of  it ! 
It  had  made  him  wish  to  be  confirmed  and  become  a 
communicant.  In  fact,  it  had  changed  his  whole 
religious  outlook,  which  before  he  used  the  ^chaplet' 
had  been  purely  formal." ' 

Unquestionably  we  have  often  made  the  mistake 
of  expecting  too  much  of  people.  We  expect  every- 
body to  be  an  advanced  and  proficient  Christian.  We 
think  we  ought  to  be  such  ourselves.  If  we  find  this 
beyond  us,  it  does  not  occur  to  us  that  at  least  we  can 
be  simple  Christians  and  carry  over  into  manhood  a 
little  of  our  childhood  faith. 

We  shall  learn  to  pray  better  in  private,  if  we 
practise  public  prayer  more  faithfully.  Actually, 
whatever  we  may  say  about  the  need  of  church  going, 
we  find  that  when  people  neglect  public  worship 
sooner  or  later  their  practice  of  religion  declines. 
Most  of  all,  is  there  need  of  using  the  service  of  Holy 
Communion  for  intercession.  Celebrations  should  be 
frequent  enough  to  train  worshippers  in  devotion.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  many  of  the  men  who 
come  back  from  France  will  bring  back  with  them  a 
new  appreciation  of  the  power  of  eucharistic  worship 


'  The  Church  m  the  Furnace. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  105 

and  some  of  the  clergy  at  least  will  have  quite  a  differ- 
ent attitude  as  to  the  value  of  eucharistic  adoration 
and  the  use  of  the  reserved  sacrament  as  a  help  to 
devotion.  They  will  have  seen  the  women  in  France, 
"kneeling  before  some  dimly  lighted  altar,  their  lips 
moving  in  devoted  entreaty  to  the  Holy  Presence  they 
believe  to  be  there  before  them",  and  they  will  be  a 
little  chary  of  declaring  emphatically  that  the  custom 
is  altogether  wrong  when  it  makes  a  sanctuary  out  of 
a  dead  building  and  a  place  of  perpetual  prayer  out 
of  an  auditorium  for  weekly  preaching. 

Our  Lord  teaches  us  the  value  of  united  prayer. 
It  is  stamped  with  His  approval,  blessed  with  His 
gracious  promise.  Our  religion  is  social.  We  are 
not  just  so  many  souls  to  be  saved  individually,  we 
are  members  of  a  divine  society;  even  before  that, 
children  of  a  common  Father's  family.  The  Lord's 
prayer  begins,  "Our  Father",  not  "My  Father". 

It  is  not  through  formal  public  worship  only  that 
we  receive  the  blessings  of  united  prayer.  One  sees 
sometimes  in  the  churches  of  Europe  groups  of  people 
saying  their  prayers  aloud  without  any  priest  to  lead 
their  devotions  and  one  wonders  why  there  should  not 
be  many  bands  of  faithful  Church  people  in  our  own 
parishes  meeting  together  in  the  same  way  to  plead 
for  special  objects.  Corporate  communions  will  be 
especially  useful  in  training  our  people  in  united 
devotion. 

But  vocal  prayer  even  is  not  necessary.  I  do  not 
know  when  I  have  been  so  vividly  impressed  by  that 


106  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

fact  as  when  at  the  weekly  meetings  of  the  Rotary 
Clubs  during  the  last  year  of  the  war  I  have  seen 
large  groups  of  men,  at  the  stroke  of  a  bell,  stand  for 
a  minute  in  silent  petition  that  God  would  guide  the 
nation  and  its  president,  make  us  worthy  of  victory, 
and  give  speedy  success  to  our  armies  and  those  of  our 
allies. 

A  Church  of  England  clerg)riiian  has  written  of  a 
profoundly  moving  experience  he  had  while  conduct- 
ing a  mission  in  New  Zealand  before  the  war.  In 
the  parish  where  he  was  preaching,  a  group  of  Quakers 
of  the  finest  type  had  asked  permission  to  use  the 
vestry  of  the  church  for  their  weekly  "silent  meeting". 
Soon  some  of  the  people  of  the  parish  joined  them 
and  after  a  time  the  meeting  migrated  to  the  church 
itself.  It  supplied  a  felt  want.  It  became  an  in- 
stitution.    The  missioner  thus  describes  it :  * 

"We  knelt  without  a  word.  There  was  no  sound 
of  vocal  prayer,  no  leader.  I  cannot  put  into  words 
what  happened,  but  some  aspects  of  the  experience  I 
must  try  to  express.  First,  there  came  very  quietly 
the  sense  of  a  Presence.  The  work  of  prayer  became 
strangely  easy.  We  were  not  resolutely  fixing  our 
thoughts  upon  a  Friend  in  a  far  country,  but  were 
listening  to  One  who  was  there  in  the  church — speak- 
ing. The  still  air  seemed  to  vibrate  with  this 
Presence  that  could  be  felt.  God  was  speaking  to  us, 
not  in  words  or  voices  but  in  that  speech  which  does 
not  need  to  be  uttered.     Yet  if  I  may  say  so  bold  a 


Cyril  Hepher:     The  Felloicship  of  Silence. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  PRAYER  107 

thing  it  was  not  what  He  said  that  mattered  so  much 
as  that  He  was  there  and  we  were  with  Him.  That 
was  enough.  Then,  again,  one  perception  that  grew 
as  the  minutes  slipped  by  unnoticed  was  the  sense  of 
fellowship.  We  in  that  church  were  no  longer  iso- 
lated individuals.  It  was  unquestionably  a  corporate 
act  in  which  we  were  engaged,  or  rather  a  corporate 
experience  that  had  come  to  us.  We  found  that  the 
freest  guiding  of  God  and  the  fullest  spiritual  ex- 
perience is  given  through  human  fellowship.  More 
use  of  silence  in  public  worship  would  surely  lift  us 
to  a  higher  spiritual  level." 

In  every  way  in  which  we  have  thought  of  it,  then, 
prayer  is  hard  work.  To  amount  to  anything  it  must 
mean  real  effort.  It  cannot  be  casual  or  perfunctory. 
We  have  to  take  time  and  shut  the  world  out  and  learn 
to  concentrate  the  mind  on  God  and  subdue  our  im- 
patience and  fill  ourselves  with  the  spirit  of  obedience, 
until  we  can  think  temperately  and  accurately,  judge 
calmly,  and  become  masters  of  ourselves  and  loyal 
servants  of  Him  whose  will  we  would  accomplish. 
Let  the  man  who  desires  stronger  faith  in  prayer  pray 
seriously — act  and  act  and  act  again — and  soon  he 
will  be  absolutely  sure  of  its  value.  Especially  let 
him  examine  himself  for  sin  (of  this  we  shall  treat 
later)  for  so  he  will  discover  his  need  of  God — and 
this  need  will  bring  him  to  his  knees. 


108  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XIII. 
CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH 

A  STRIKING  feature  of  modern  Christianity  is 
the  absence  of  any  corporate  conception  of  relig- 
ion. Thousands  of  people  think  it  quite  enough  to  be 
an  "unattached"  follower  of  Christ.  Church  attend- 
ance is  irregular;  Church  membership  is  considered 
unnecessary.  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  relig- 
ious indifference ;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  more  "dif- 
fused Christianity"  than  ever  before,  a  more  general 
desire  to  be  of  use  in  the  world.  But,  unquestionably, 
along  with  this,  is  a  growing  neglect  of  religious  insti- 
tutions. Christianity  has  become  "a  mere  amorphous 
aggregate  of  individual  souls".  There  is  an  utter 
absence  of  any  corporate  idea  of  religion. 

Even  among  Church  members  we  find  a  failure 
to  understand  that  Christianity  is  necessarily  some- 
thing larger  than  individualism.  Personal  religion 
there  must  be,  of  course.  One  by  one  we  must  surren- 
der to  Christ;  one  by  one  place  ourselves  under  His 
influence.  He  "saved  me  and  gave  Himself  for  me*' 
and  I  must  accept  Him  as  my  Saviour  and  Lord.  All 
that,  surely.    But  Christianity,  as  we  read  it,  is  more 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  109 

than  that.  When,  one  by  one,  we  have  come  to  Christ, 
we  are  not  to  be  left  loose  and  unattached.  If  we 
read  the  gospel  story  aright,  individual  fellowship  is 
safeguarded  as  it  becomes  merged  in  corporate  fellow- 
ship. The  religion  of  Christ  is  to  be  embodied  in  a 
society — the  Church  which  is  His  body — and  that 
society,  one  and  undivided,  is  to  go  out  into  the  world 
conquering  and  to  conquer. 

There  was  a  time  when  men  hardly  dreamed  of 
being  religious  without  belonging  to  some  Christian 
organization.  They  might  be  irreligious  and  careless 
and  make  no  professions  of  Christianity,  but  they 
did  not  for  a  moment  imagine  that  they  could  be 
anything  other  than  irreligious  and  yet  hold  aloof 
from  all  organized  Christianity ;  if  they  were  believers 
they  must  profess  some  creed  and  belong  to  some 
Church.  Now,  however,  we  find  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  men  and  women,  of  moral  and  upright  life, 
professing  and  calling  themselves  Christians,  and  yet 
identified  with  no  Church,  asserting  their  admiration 
for  Christ,  even  their  love  and  devotion  for  Him, 
perhaps  claiming  to  be  in  sympathy  with  His 
ideals,  or  it  may  be  with  the  aims  of  His  Church, 
even  attending  occasionally  on  the  services  of  some 
religious  body,  and  yet  identifying  themselves  with 
no  Christian  communion  and  holding  back  from  any 
open  Church  membership. 

You  speak  to  them  about  their  anomalous  posi- 
tion, and  they  give  various  reasons  for  their  failure 
to  join  a  Church.  Perhaps  it  is  that  "they  do  not 
feel  that  they  are  good  enough ;"  perhaps  they  cannot 


no  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

altogether  agree  with  the  doctrines  of  any  one  body; 
or,  they  think  "there  are  too  many  hypocrites  in  the 
churches  already";  or,  they  cannot  see  the  necessity 
of  "joining  the  Church",  they  can  be  followers  of 
Christ  without  it.  They  think  of  Christ  as  a  great 
moral  teacher,  a  sinless  moral  example,  and  they 
can  try  to  follow  Him,  without  belonging  to  any 
organization. 

Indeed,  we  shall  find  with  many  that  there  is  an 
inherent  dislike  of  the  very  thought  of  organized 
Christianity.  They  love  to  picture  our  Lord  as  One 
who  went  about  doing  good.  Crowds  of  the  poor 
flock  to  Him  for  comfort  and  help,  multitudes  of  the 
sick  press  upon  Him  to  be  healed,  the  distressed  and 
heavy  laden  come  to  Him  for  relief,  and  He  receives 
them  all  so  sweetly  and  tenderly  and  graciously! 
The  publicans  even,  and  the  notorious  sinners,  are 
not  turned  away.  He  has  time  for  the  little  children, 
and  rebukes  those  who  think  that  He  is  too  busy  to  be 
troubled  by  their  demands  upon  His  time. 

He  speaks  so  lovingly  to  them  all,  too.  So  simply 
and  beautifully  does  He  explain  spiritual  things, 
that  men  cannot  but  be  drawn  to  Him,  cannot  but 
wish  to  follow  Him,  cannot  but  long  to  be  like  Him, 
cannot  but  love  Him.  So  we  would  wish  to  love  Him 
now,  some  say;  so  we  want  our  religion  brought  to 
us ;  so  we  would  have  the  Gospel  in  its  primitive  pur- 
ity and  sweet  simplicity.  The  moment  we  try  to 
organize  all  this  into  a  system,  the  moment  you  ask  us 
to  accept  a  creed  and  to  tie  ourselves  to  ordinances, 
that  moment  the  charm  of  the  picture  is  gone. 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  1 1 1 

Well,  that  picture  in  all  its  beauty  is  quite  true. 
But  it  is  not  the  only  picture  of  our  Lord's  life  that 
the  Gospels  give  us.  Our  Saviour  was  all  this — sweet 
and  tender  and  gracious,  calling  men  to  Himself  and 
never  turning  any  away,  pitiful  toward  their  infirmi- 
ties and  merciful  in  their  sin,  drawing  them  to  Him 
with  cords  of  love.  But  there  is  another  side  of  His 
life,  a  deeper  purpose,  an  inner  motive.  There  is  the 
real  object  of  His  coming,  which  was  revealed  at  first 
only  to  the  inner  circle  of  His  disciples,  and  to  them 
little  by  little.  He  came  to  suffer  and  to  die,  and  to 
do  all  this  not  merely  that  men  might  be  drawn  to 
Him  as  individuals,  but  that  they  might  be  organized 
and  knit  together  in  a  body,  through  the  power  of 
His  risen  life — He  came  as  the  Son  of  God  to  establish 
a  kingdom.^ 

His  kingdom !  The  word  is  ever  on  His  lips :  "It 
is  the  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  king- 
dom" ;  "I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as  My  Father 
hath  appointed  unto  Me."  He  is  at  the  pains  to 
explain  by  parables  that  occupy  a  large  part  of  His 
time  of  teaching  what  that  kingdom  is,  how  it  is  to  be 
started,  how  it  will  grow,  who  will  be  its  subjects, 
what  will  be  its  characteristics. 

And  this  kingdom,  we  find  by  and  by,  is  con- 
nected with  the  Church.  As  we  read  what  the  Master 
says  of  His  kingdom,  the  thought  seems  to  point 
sometimes  to  an  organization,  sometimes  to  the  rule 
of  Christ  in  the  heart.     Now  He  says  to  one  who 


^  See  H.  S.  Holland :  Greed  and  Character . 


112  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

comes  to  Him,  "Thou  art  not  far  from  the  kingdom 
of  heaven" ;  again  the  other  side  is  emphasized,  when 
He  speaks  of  this  kingdom  as  a  net,  or  a  field  of 
grain,  a  gathering  of  souls,  some  worthy  and  some 
unworthy.  Soon  he  begins,  too,  to  speak  of  His 
Church,  and  whether  this  is  identical  with  the  king- 
dom, or  the  nucleus  of  the  kingdom,  or  the  appointed 
means  of  coming  in  touch  with  it,  at  least  the  two 
ideas  seem  to  be  closely  connected  in  the  mind  of  the 
Master.  So  His  heart  leaps  out  to  St.  Peter,  when 
the  acknowledgment  of  His  Messiahship  shows  the 
apostle's  understanding  of  His  teaching:  "Thou  art 
Peter  [the  Eock-man],  and  upon  this  rock  [of  such 
faith  as  thine]  I  will  build  My  Church." 

Yes :  our  Lord  came  to  found  a  kingdom,  to  build 
a  Church.  He  called  His  disciples  to  be  made  pillars, 
foundation  stones,  of  this  Church;  He  trained  them 
for  that,  ordained  them,  sent  them  out  with  wonder- 
ful powers.  He  instituted  a  sacrament  of  admission 
into  the  kingdom:  they  were  to  "go  therefore  and 
teach  [make  disciples,  make  Christians  of]  all  nations, 
baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  This  baptism  was  to 
be  the  means  of  their  entrance  into  the  kingdom: 
"Except  a  man  be  bom  of  water  and  the  Spirit  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God."  Brought  into 
the  kingdom  by  baptism,  they  were  to  find  another 
sacrament  of  fellowship  and  unity,  through  the  life 
which  came  from  Him:  "Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of 
the  Son  of  Man,"  He  said,  "and  drink  His  blood,  ye 
have  no  life  in  you."     "The  Lord  Jesus,  the  same 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  1 13 

night  in  which.  He  was  betrayed,  took  bread;  and 
when  He  had  given  thanks  He  brake  it,  and  said, 
Take,  eat :  this  is  My  body,  which  is  broken  for  you : 
this  do  in  remembrance  of  Me.  After  the  same 
manner  also  He  took  the  cup,  when  He  had  supped, 
saying.  This  cup  is  the  new  testament  in  My  Blood: 
this  do  ye,  as  oft  as  ye  drink  it,  in  remembrance 
of  Me." 

So  St.  Paul  writes  of  this  sacrament.  He  is  per- 
fectly clear,  too,  about  our  Lord's  purpose  for  His 
Church.  With  him  there  was  no  doubt  of  the  Mas- 
ter's meaning.  What  a  tremendous  Churchman  St. 
Paul  was  !  To  him  the  Church  which  Christ  founded 
is  the  most  wonderful  thing  on  earth.  Men,  as  soon 
as  they  believe,  are  to  be  brought  into  it,  and  when 
they  are  so  numbered  among  its  members  they  are  in 
such  vital  union  with  Christ  that  the  relationship  can 
be  expressed  only  by  so  striking  a  statement  as  that 
"we  are  members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His 
bones."  St.  Paul  regards  the  Church  as  the  very 
Body  of  Christ.  As  our  own  bodies  have  many  mem- 
bers, each  with  its  own  office,  and  all  joined  in  living 
union,  so  we  as  members  of  the  Body  of  Christ, 
His  Church,  each  called  into  this  membership  for 
some  particular  work  for  Christ,  are  in  the  closest 
union  with  Him,  who  is  the  Head. 

The  thought  is  not  St.  Paul's :  he  received  it  from 
the  Lord,  who  had  used  just  as  strong  a  figure  when 
He  said:  "I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches."  As 
the  branches  are  knit  into  the  vine,  so  that  the  sap 
flows  out  into  them,  and  through  them  to  the  leaves. 


114  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

freshening  and  quickening  the  youngest  shoot,  so 
are  we  grafted  into  Christ,  the  true  vine.  We  are 
members  of  His  Body,  and  that  Body  is  His  Church. 
So  the  thought,  given  by  our  Lord,  developed  into 
another  figure  by  St.  Paul,  is  to  be  traced  in  the 
action  of  the  apostles.  The  real  way  to  come  unto 
Christ  is  to  enter  the  kingdom.  When  men  believed, 
they  were  baptized,  and  being  baptized  they  became 
members  of  an  organized  body.  "The  Lord  added  to 
the  Church  daily  such  as  were  being  saved.'' 

After  all,  this  is  really  the  only  ground  on  which 
we  can  ask  for  Church  membership  and  allegiance. 
We  must  go  "back  to  Christ"  and  discover  that  it  is 
an  essential  part  of  His  teaching.  It  is  not  enough 
to  urge  that  Church  membership  is  convenient  and 
that  an  organization  is  useful  in  Christian  work  as  in 
everything  else.  It  is  not  enough  to  urge  that  it  is 
expedient,  a  practical  way  of  showing  the  world  one's 
personal  acceptance  of  Christ.  It  is  not  sufficient 
if  we  show  its  helpfulness  and  urge  that  in  common 
worship  we  renew  our  strength.  We  must  show  that 
it  is  according  to  "the  mind  of  Christ".  If  I  belong 
to  a  Church,  I  must  belong  because  I  find  that  He 
commanded  or  desired  it.  If  He  did  not  regard  it 
as  of  primary  importance;  if  He  did  not  make  it  an 
essential  part  of  His  teaching;  if,  indeed,  it  did  not 
so  largely  occupy  His  thought  as  to  appear  to  be 
a  vital  and  integral  part  of  His  scheme  of  redemption 
— then  I  am  not  obliged  to  give  it  any  large  part 
in  my  own  thought.    It  is  merely  a  matter  of  prefer- 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  1 1 5 

ence,  of  likes  and  dislikes,  of  personal  inclination 
and  adaptability.  I  may  belong  to  a  Church  or  not, 
as  I  choose. 

What  our  picture  of  Christ  has  shown  is  that  the 
Church  is  indeed  His  plan  and  therefore  that  we 
have  no  right  to  substitute  for  it  our  own  ideas.  It 
is  His  forethought,  not  man's  afterthought.  Christ's 
followers,  if  they  understand  His  plan,  can  never  be 
content  to  be  "unattached".  They  must  be  more 
than  the  "amorphous  aggregate  of  individuals".  If 
there  is  any  one  lesson  which  has  been  driven  home 
to  the  conscience  of  thoughtful  and  earnest  Christians 
during  the  past  years  of  war,  it  is  that  of  our  weak- 
ness to  save  the  world  because  of  our  disunion — and 
disunion  has  now  become  more  than  a  tragically 
needless  multiplication  of  sects,  it  is  disorganization, 
individual  independence  run  mad,  complete  lack  of 
any  corporate  consciousness.  The  present  situation 
could  never  have  arisen  had  Christ's  idea  been  kept 
in  mind.  He  came  not  simply  to  save  individuals, 
but  to  unite  them  in  a  body  to  carry  on  His  work  of 
salvation. 

So  we  see  why  we  must  belong  to  some  Christian 
body,  be  members  of  some  Church.  It  is  the  first 
step  by  way  of  obedience  to  Christ.  He  commands 
that  we  should  be  baptized ;  He  told  His  apostles  so 
to  make  Christians  of  all  men.  He  said  that  this 
was  the  one  way  of  entrance  into  His  kingdom.  He 
it  is,  too,  who  commands  the  other  great  act  of 
obedience,  the  eating  of  His  spiritual  flesh  and  blood 
in  Holy  Communion.     To  obey  that  command  we 


116  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

must  be  "members  of  a  Church".  Whether  we  see 
the  need  of  these  things  or  not,  then,  whether  we  see 
the  reason  of  them  or  not — ^we  are  bound  to  do  what 
Christ  says.  He  is  our  Master  and  His  word  is  law. 
He  commands  us  to  be  joined  to  Him  in  His  Church 
and  therefore  we  have  no  choice  in  the  matter. 

But  His  commands  are  coupled  with  wonderful 
promises  of  life  and  so  we  are  called  upon  to  "join  a 
Church"  because  this  is  the  hest  way  of  gaining 
strength  for  our  spiritual  life.  If  baptism  is  really 
a  new  birth,  as  St.  John's  report  of  our  Lord's  words 
tell  us;  if  the  Holy  Communion  is  really  a  feeding 
upon  Him,  so  that  we  receive  His  glorified  life 
within  us;  if  the  sacraments  are  really  the  means 
by  which  the  strength  of  the  Vine  flows  out  into  us, 
who  are  the  branches — then  we  can  be  strong  here 
in  this  spiritual  home,  as  we  cannot  be  if  we  remain 
without.  We  "join  the  Church",  then,  that  we  may 
find  the  grace  we  all  need  so  much  if  we  are  to  follow 
the  Master  we  love — or  claim,  or  wish,  to  love — so 
well. 

Finally,  we  should  belong  to  the  Church  because 
that  is  the  best  way  of  helping  others.  Our  Chris- 
tianity is  not  true  and  earnest  if  it  stops  at  self.  We 
cannot  center  all  our  wishes  on  the  saving  of  our  own 
souls.  We  wish  to  help  others,  even  as  we  need  to  be 
helped  ourselves.  Now  we  can  best  do  that  in  the 
Church — never  mind  now  in  which  Church,  but  in 
some  one  of  the  various  religious  societies. 

What  would  the  world  be  if  all  the  Churches  were 
swept  away  to-morrow  ?    Imperfect  they  are,  through 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  117 

man's  sin  (even  as  Christ  said  would  be  the  fact)  ; 
but,  imperfect  as  organized  Christianity  is,  yet  it  is 
the  greatest  power  for  good  the  world  has  ever  seen  or 
dreamed  of.  If  you  know  any  better  way  of  taking 
your  part  in  the  work  of  helping  others,  and  so  uplift- 
ing the  world,  show  it  to  us;  but  if  you  do  not  know 
any  surer  method,  then  follow  Christ's  plan,  and 
go  where  others  have  found  their  greatest  help  and 
support. 

This  will  suggest  some  of  the  objections  which  one 
hears  against  Church  membership. 

Men  say:  "I  do  not  go  to  church,  or  I  do  not 
belong  to  the  Church,  because  there  are  so  many 
unworthy  members  in  every  denomination  I  know.  It 
seems  sometimes  as  if  Church  people  were,  many  of 
them,  nothing  but  hypocritical  and  insincere  'pro- 
fessors' of  religion."  This  is  the  objection  which, 
perhaps,  we  hear  oftenest — ^that  there  is  a  lack  of  real 
Christianity  on  the  part  of  Christians  in  general,  and 
that  the  Churches  do  not,  therefore,  show  sufficient 
vital  force  to  induce  adherence.  The  complaint  is 
heard  very  often  among  men  of  the  working  class. 
One  American  labor  leader  has  written:  "Working- 
men  like  everything  in  Christianity  except  Christians. 
They  have  lost  confidence  in  the  Church,  but  not  in 
Christ."  As  another  well-known  leader  phrases  it: 
"The  complaint  made  by  American  workingmen 
against  the  Churches  is  that  they  fail  to  influence 
conduct,  that  they  fail  to  impress  their  fundamental 
principles  on  those  who  give  direction  to  the  prac- 


118  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

tical  affairs  of  life  in  the  counting  room,  in  legislative 
halls  and  on  the  bench,  although  these  men  profess 
Christianity.  Laboring  men  do  not  feel  that  it  is 
better  for  them  to  work  for  a  Christian  than  for  one 
who  denies  the  obligations  of  Christianity — the  out- 
come of  experience  has  not  taught  them  that  such  is 
the  case ;  they  do  not  believe  that  Church  membership 
on  the  part  of  their  landlord  insures  just  and  consid- 
erate treatment  for  his  tenants;  they  do  not  flock  to 
the  merchants  who  acknowledge  Christ  as  their  Mas- 
ter, in  confidence  that  they  will  merely  on  that 
account  receive  of  them  honest  goods  for  a  fair  price." 

The  complaint  is  one  which  may  well  cause  those 
who  are  in  the  Church  serious  and  sober  thought.  It 
should  bring  home  to  us  a  solemn  sense  of  our  awful 
responsibility  for  our  fellows. 

Yet,  so  far  as  the  objection  is  concerned,  a  little 
logical  dissection  may  not  be  amiss.  There  are  bad 
people  in  the  Churches,  are  there?  Well,  we  may 
answer,  there  are  bad  people  in  business,  and  you  meet 
a  lot  of  dishonest  folk  wherever  you  transact  any 
ordinary  week-day  labor.  There  are  immoral  and 
unworthy  people  who  sit  next  you  when  you  go  to  a 
theater  or  other  place  of  amusement.  If  you  are  a 
union  member,  you  know  that  every  labor  organiza- 
tion has  its  ugly  and  brutal  followers.  There  are 
unpatriotic  and  unworthy  Americans.  But  you  do 
not  renounce  business,  and  give  up  amusements,  and 
expatriate  yourself,  on  that  account.  No  more  should 
you  stay  out  of  the  Church  because  its  members 
are  not  what  they  should  be.     If  Christ  founded  a 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  1 19 

Church,  and  if  He  left  therein  a  storehouse  of  grace 
for  the  soul,  it  is  your  duty  to  be  there,  seizing  these 
advantages  though  others  do  not,  trying  if  possible, 
as  you  follow  Christ  yourself,  to  deepen  the  lives  of 
others  who  should  be  following  Him  too. 

There  are  bad  people  in  the  churches,  are  there? 
Indeed,  did  not  Christ  say  there  would  be  ?  Read  the 
parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares,  or  of  the  net  full 
of  fishes  bad  and  good,  and  see  that  it  is  not  at  all 
remarkable  that  among  the  members  of  any  Christian 
denomination  there  will  be  some,  though  by  no  means 
as  many  as  you  suppose,  who  are  hypocritical,  or  self- 
seeking,  or  inconsistent  and  insincere.  It  will  be  so 
till  the  great  harvest,  when  the  chaff  shall  be  separated 
from  the  wheat.  The  real  point  at  issue  is  this :  Did 
or  did  not  Christ  Himself  found  a  Church  ?  Did  He, 
or  did  He  not,  make  it  a  home  of  grace?  If  He  did 
leave  the  Church  behind  Him,  an  organized  body, 
it  is  our  duty  to  be  within  its  fold,  no  matter  who 
else  may  be  there  or  however  poorly  their  lives  may 
square  with  their  profession. 

Or,  again :  "I  have  never  joined  a  Church,  because 
there  are  so  many  Christian  denominations  that  it  is 
impossible  to  decide  among  them.  I  stay  outside, 
therefore,  and  seek  to  be  a  follower  of  Christ  in  my 
own  way."    . 

Possibly  you  have  not  read  the  anecdote  of  the 
young  man  who  answered  an  enthusiastic  Church 
worker  in  that  spirit.  "Oh,  I  just  run  around," 
he  said  gaily.  "I  don't  understand  the  difference 
between  the  Churches ;  in  fact,  there  is  a  great  deal  in 


120  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  Bible  itself  that  I  don't  understand,  and  until  I 
do,  of  course  I  can't  join  any  Church." 

"How  man}^  hours  a  day  do  you  spend  studying 
this  matter?"  asked  the  questioner. 

"Hours  ?'^  he  repeated  in  surprise. 

"Well,  then,  minutes?" 

The  young  man  was  dumb. 

"Ah,"  said  his  companion,  with  patient  sadness, 
"not  one?  If  you  thought  a  knowledge  of  geology 
necessary  to  your  success  in  life — or  astronomy,  or 
shorthand — ^}^ou  would  not  think  of  spending  less  than 
one  hour  a  day  in  its  study,  perhaps  two,  perhaps 
three;  and  you  would  not  expect  to  know  or  under- 
stand it  without  that  exertion.  But  the  knowledge 
of  God,  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  salvation — the  highest  and 
deepest  of  all  knowledge — you  sit  around  and  wait 
for,  as  if  it  would  come  like  a  flash  of  lightning." 

Does  any  one  see  a  likeness  to  himself  in  this 
young  man  who  was  satisfied  "just  [to]  run  around"  ? 

And  then  there  is  the  man  who  does  not  belong 
to  the  Church  because  he  is  not  good  enough. 

My  dear  friend,  if  you  thought  you  were  good 
enough,  we  should  ask  you  to  go  back  and  give  it  more 
consideration  before  you  came  to  seek  admission  at 
the  door  of  the  kingdom.  It  is  because  you  are  not 
good  enough,  that  we  urge  you  to  come.  The  Church 
is  not  the  home  of  good  people;  it  is  a  refuge  for 
sinners.  If  only  you  realize  your  own  unworthiness, 
and  are  longing  to  be  better,  and  feel  that  you  need 
help  to  make  you  what  you  would  wish  to  be,  then 


CHRIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH  121 

the  Clmrch  holds  out  her  arms  to  welcome  you.  The 
Church  is  not  a  mutual  admiration  society  where 
men  and  women  are  admitted  who  have  reached  a 
certain  degree  of  goodness;  it  is  rather  a  resting 
place  for  those  who  are  sinful,  but  find  themselves 
weary  and  heavy  laden  with  their  sin,  who  can  say 
that  the  remembrance  of  their  faults  is  grievous  unto 
them,  the  burden  of  them  intolerable.  If,  when  you 
say  you  are  not  good  enough,  you  merely  mean  some- 
thing of  a  vague,  general  character,  that  you  are  con- 
scious of  sin — we  answer,  that  is  the  very  reason  you 
need  to  come. 

Perhaps  you  mean  more  than  that.  Perhaps  there 
is  some  special,  definite  obstacle  that  keeps  you  back, 
some  pet  fault,  some  secret  disloyalty,  some  besetting 
sin,  that  you  will  not,  and  have  not  tried  to  give  up. 
Then,  we  say,  if  it  is  something  as  definite  as  this, 
put  it  away.  If  for  this  reason  you  are  not  ready  to 
come,  make  yourself  ready.  Do  you  remember  how 
the  Lord  Christ  says,  "If  thou  bring  thy  gift  to  the 
altar,  and  there  rememberest  that  thy  brother  hath 
ought  against  thee  [that  is,  that  you  have  wronged 
him  in  any  way,  or  are  on  such  bad  terms  with  him 
as  would  make  you  come  before  God  vrith  a  burden 
on  your  conscience],  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the 
altar,  and  go  thy  way;  first  be  reconciled  to  thy 
brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift."  Christ 
does  not  for  a  moment  hint  that  if  we  make  such  a 
discovery,  we  are  to  keep  away  from  the  altar.  He 
says,  rather.  Go  and  get  rid  of  this  tliat  makes  you 
unworthy.    And  be  in  haste  about  it.    Do  not  delay. 


122  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Do  not  loiter.  "Agree  with  thine  adversary  quickly." 
Christ  does  not  say,  Let  the  matter  drop.  He  says, 
Settle  the  difficulty.  Get  rid  of  the  sin.  Put  away 
the  obstacle.    Then  come  and  offer  thy  gift. 

The  trouble  with  the  average  Churchman  to-day 
is  that  "his  religion  carries  no  atmosphere,  no  courage, 
no  conviction;  it  is  hesitating,  impotent,  unsaving." 
Men  have  made  the  Church  so  much  less  than  Christ 
meant  it  to  be.  In  the  words  of  a  friendly  critic, 
"Church  people  have  failed  to  reach  the  masses  because 
of  the  passivit}^,  drowsy  devotion,  and  blind  obedience 
which  they  ignorantly  think  is  religion.  They 
indulge  in  public  worship  to  secure  promises  and 
favors,  not  in  order  that  they  may  get  to  God  to 
become  better  and  more  active  men  and  women  in 
life." ' 

Yes,  yes,  yes.  But,  ah!  it  is  so  much  easier  to 
criticize  than  to  correct.  Impotent  as  the  Church  is, 
the  remedy  does  not  lie  in  abandoning  Christ's  ideal. 
It  lies  in  seeking  loving  fellowship  with  all  who  wish 
to  embody  His  ideal.  To  help  the  Church  to  fulfil 
its  mission  is  a  better  thing  than  to  stand  outside  and 
complain.  WTiatever  its  faults,  it  is  still  the  chief 
institution  in  the  world  that  labors  persistently  and 
definitely  for  righteousness.  If  it  does  not  stand  for 
all  that  you  would  like  to  have  it  represent,  it  is  your 
business  to  get  inside  and  make  it  rise  to  new  ideals. 


-  Adderley :  The  Creed  and  Real  Life. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  123 


XIV. 
CHOOSING  A  CHURCH 

WE  have  seen  that  Christ  founded  a  Church, 
which  is  the  nucleus  of  His  kingdom — the 
kingdom  of  God,  or  the  kingdom  of  Heaven.  The 
Church  is  Christ's  plan  of  redemption,  not  man's 
attempted  improvement  on  His  plan.  To  enter  its 
membership,  therefore,  is  to  act  in  accordance  with 
the  mind  of  the  Master.  We  ought  to  belong  to  some 
religious  communion. 

But  which  one  ?  How  shall  we  choose  a  Church  ? 
There  are  many  denominations,  all  claiming  to  be 
Christian  Churches:  how  shall  we  decide  their 
claims?  how  shall  we  know  which  is  the  best?  how 
can  we  make  up  our  minds  which  to  join?  That  is 
the  second  serious  question,  then,  that  we.  are  bound 
to  face :  how  to  choose  a  Church. 

We  are  all  acquainted  with  the  ordinary  way  of 
deciding  the  matter.  A  man  goes  where  his  friends 
go,  or  where  the  members  of  the  congregation  are 
most  congenial.  He  joins  the  same  Church  of  which 
his  parents  were  members.  Or  he  goes  where  the  ser- 
vice and  the  music  are  most  to  his  taste.     Or  he  iden- 


124  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

tifies  himself  with  some  congregation  whose  pastor 
pleases  him,  or  where  the  preaching  is  most  accept- 
able. Or  worst  of  all — though  he  does  not  confess 
this  as  his  motive,  and  perhaps  is  hardly  aware  of  it 
himself  even — he  goes  where  he  and  his  family  will 
gain  social  standing  and  secure  an  introduction  into 
certain  exclusive  circles. 

In  one  of  these  various  ways,  having  once  made 
up  his  mind  to  belong  to  a  Church,  he  decides  on  the 
one  that  shall  be  his  choice.  After  all,  he  says,  it 
doesn't  really  make  much  difference  where  I  go.  The 
Churches  are  all  moving  toward  the  same  goal  and 
working  with  the  same  end  in  view.  There  are  many 
religious  roads,  but  they  all  lead  heavenward,  and  it 
hardly  matters  much  in  which  one  I  make  my  start. 

So,  perhaps,  you  who  read  this  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  talk  yourself.  But  if  you  will  stop  a  mo- 
ment to  reconsider  the  matter,  you  will  find  that  this 
question  of  Church  membership  is  a  much  more 
serious  thing  than  that. 

It  must  be  plain  to  you,  if  you  think  about  it  at 
all,  that  if  Christ  really  founded  a  Church,  the  one 
right  way  to  decide  which  body  we  shall  join  is  to  try 
as  best  we  can  to  find  out  which  is  the  Church  that 
Christ  established.  It  may  involve  considerable  study 
on  our  part;  it  may  lead  to  much  searching  of  heart 
and  much  examination  of  the  foundations  of  our  be- 
lief;  it  may  lead  us  to  lay  aside  certain  opinions  that 
we  have  imbibed  almost  from  infancy ;  it  may  shatter 
old  and  dear  relationships — but  nevertheless,  since 
this  is  the  greatest  question  in  life  we  shall  ever  have 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  125 

to  decide,  it  should  be  settled  in  all  seriousness  and 
earnestness,  at  no  matter  what  expense  of  time  and 
thought.  The  spiritual  things  are  the  most  important 
things  in  the  world,  our  relations  with  God  are  more 
to  be  considered  than  any  relations  with  men,  and 
since  the  choosing  of  a  Church  involves  our  whole 
spiritual  development  and  will  affect  our  whole  life 
with  God,  it  should  not  be  settled  lightly  and 
carelessly. 

If  we  have  decided  to  belong  to  a  Church,  then, 
and  if  we  have  so  decided  because  we  believe  it  to  be 
in  accordance  with  the  expressed  desire  of  Christ,  the 
only  right  way  to  make  our  choice  among  the  many 
Christian  bodies  that  claim  to  spring  from  Him  is  to 
try  to  learn  which,  in  its  doctrines,  government,  and 
worship,  is  most  like  the  Church  Christ  founded.  We 
must  ask  which  resembles  the  primitive  Church,  in 
doctrine  unchanged  from  what  the  apostles  taught 
and  practised ;  which  has  a  Church  polity  such  as  we 
find  among  the  first  Christians;  which  has  a  Church 
worship  such  as  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  of  history 
would  show  to  be  like  that  of  the  first  ages  of  the 
Church's  life. 

It  may  be  that  we  shall  never  be  able  to  decide  all 
this,  or  it  may  be  that  we  shall  make  a  wrong  decision 
— but  at  least  we  can  try  to  find  out  the  truth,  at  least 
we  can  enter  upon  the  study  with  that  seriousness 
which  the  subject  demands.  Then,  if  we  have  done 
all  in  our  power  to  discover  "which  Church  is  right", 
and  have  failed,  we  shall  not  be  blamed. 


126  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Just  at  this  point  we  hear  some  one  say  that  in 
such  a  search  we  are  foredoomed  to  failure.  With 
scores,  and  even  hundreds,  of  denominations  asserting 
that  there  we  shall  find  the  pure  Church  of  Christ,  it 
will  be  impossible  to  decide  with  any  certainty  among 
their  conflicting  claims.  That  is  where  the  thought- 
ful, well-grounded  Churchman  disagrees  with  you. 
He  is  a  Churchman  by  conviction  and  he  believes  you 
can  decide,  and  can  decide  with  no  book  but  the  Bible 
in  your  hand. 

Let  us  take  our  Bibles,  then,  imagine  yourselves 
among  some  of  the  scenes  described  in  its  pages,  and 
try  to  see  what  the  primitive  Church  was  like.  In 
this  examination  of  Scripture  we  must  ask  you,  how- 
ever, to  remember  one  thing:  that  in  the  case  of  any 
dispute  over  the  meaning  of  a  passage,  we  can  learn 
which  is  the  true  view  by  consulting  the  early  fathers 
of  the  Church.  What  did  they  think  the  passage 
meant?  What,  in  the  early,  undisputed  general 
councils,  did  they  say  about  Church  doctrine?  In 
their  opinions  we  have  the  interpretation  of  the  men 
who  came  immediately  after  the  time  of  Christ  and 
His  apostles,  as  to  what  the  Bible  teaching  means — 
just  as  if,  for  example,  in  the  interpreting  of  one  of 
Lincoln's  speeches,  we  could  have  the  opinion  of 
Nicolay  or  Hay,  or  the  personal  recollection  of  some 
one  who  had  known  Lincoln  or  at  least  was  well 
acquainted  with  those  who  did  know  him. 

With  Bible  in  hand,  then,  and  with  this  warning 
in  mind,  let  us  try  to  see  what  the  primitive  Church 
was. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  127 

(1)  We  are  in  Ephesus,  and  we  hear  that  the 
great  apostle  St.  Paul  is  coming  to  the  city.  We  join 
the  crowds  of  people  who  are  going  to  hear  him 
preach.  Among  them  are  some  men  who  press  for- 
ward to  converse  with  him.  "We  have  heard,"  they 
say,  "of  what  you  told  the  jailor  at  Philippi;  and 
many  others  have  received  the  same  words,  so  full  of 
comfort.  We  remember  that  you  said,  ^Believe  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved.^  And  we 
do  believe.  We  have  heard  of  His  wonderful  life,  of 
His  death  for  us,  of  His  glorious  resurrection.  We 
believe  in  Him  as  the  Son  of  God." 

So  they  speak,  and  St.  Paul  looks  at  them,  and 
asks:  "Have  ye  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye 
believed  ?"  They  are  puzzled.  "We  have  not  so  much 
as  heard  whether  there  be  any  Holy  Ghost."  And 
now  it  is  St.  Paul's  turn  to  be  astonished.  "Unto 
what  then  were  ye  baptized  ?"  he  asks ;  and  they  say, 
^TTnto  John's  baptism." 

"Ah,"  says  the  great  apostle,  "John  but  baptized 
with  the  baptism  of  repentance.  His  was  an  act 
whereby  men,  openly  confessing  their  sins,  took  their 
place  among  those  who  looked  for  the  coming  redemp- 
tion. As  he  baptized  the  people,  he  said  to  them 
that  they  should  believe  on  Him  who  should  come 
after,  that  is,  on  Jesus  Christ.  His  baptism  brought 
no  new  grace  of  life;  that  must  come  from  Him 
whose  forerunner  John  was,  who  should  baptize  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire."  (So  we  must  under- 
stand the  brief  report  of  the  apostle's  words  given  us 
in  the  Acts.)     And  "when  they  heard  this,  they  were 


128  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  And  when 
Paul  had  laid  his  hands  upon  them,  the  Holy  Ghost 
came  on  them."  ^ 

So  we  see  that  with  St.  Paul  something  must  fol- 
low belief  in  Christ:  the  believer  must  be  baptised, 
and  then  apostolic  hands  must  be  laid  upon  him,  that 
he  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost. 

(2)  But  was  that  the  general  practice? 

We  go  back  a  few  years,  and  now  we  are  in 
Samaria.  St.  Philip  is  preaching  there,  and  when  the 
people  believe  him  thus  "preaching  the  things  con- 
cerning the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,"  what  happens?  "They  were  baptized,  both 
men  and  women." 

But  is  that  all  ?  Does  he  not  put  his  hands  upon 
them,  as  did  St.  Paul  with  the  Ephesian  converts? 
No,  apparently  not.  Ah,  wait !  It  is  not  St.  Philip 
who  "confirms"  them,  but  the  gift  is  to  be  theirs 
nevertheless.  "When  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jeru- 
salem heard  that  Samaria  had  received  the  word  of 
God,  they  sent  unto  them  Peter  and  John :  who,  when 
they  were  come  down,  prayed  for  them,  that  they 
might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost  (for  as  yet  He  was 
fallen  upon  none  of  them :  only  they  were  baptized  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus).  Then  laid  they  their 
hands  on  them,  and  they  received  the  Holy  Ghost.* 

So,  after  all,  the  same  course  was  followed  here. 
First,  baptism;  then  what  we  now  call  confirmation. 


^  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  xix.  1-6. 
*  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  viii.  12-17. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  129 

the  laying  on  of  hands  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
in  all  His  fulness. 

(3)  But  why  did  not  St.  Philip  confirm?  If  he 
baptized,  why  must  an  apostle  be  sent  for  the  second 
rite? 

Well,  we  go  back  a  little  further,  to  see  who  St. 
Philip  was.  It  is  in  Jerusalem,  and  among  the  early 
Christians  there  have  been  disputes  over  the  admin- 
istration of  the  charitable  funds — for  these  early 
Christians  were  not  perfect,  you  see,  any  more  than 
are  the  later  ones.  But  now  the  dispute  has  been 
settled,  and  seven  men  are  selected  for  ordination  at 
the  apostles'  hands  into  a  lower  order  of  the  ministry.' 
Philip  is  among  these,  and,  as  we  see,  his  ordination 
gives  him  certain  powers.  He  preaches ;  he  baptizes ; 
but  he  is  not  of  the  apostolic  order,  he  is  only  a  deacon, 
and  so  he  does  not  confirm  or  ordain. 

(4)  So  you  say:  Now  I  see  it  all.  There  were 
these  deacons  and  others  like  them,  I  suppose,  who 
afterward  formed  the  ministry  of  the  Church;  but 
when  the  apostles  died  their  gifts  died  with  them, 
and  that  is  the  reason  so  many  do  not  believe  in  con- 
firmation to-day:  those  who  could  give  the  Holy 
Spirit  are  no  longer  among  us. 

Wait  a  moment !  There  were  not  these  two  orders 
of  the  ministry  only ;  there  were  three. 

We  are  in  one  of  the  Eastern  cities,  and  we  meet 
a  Christian  who  has  with  him  copies  of  St.  Paul's 
epistles  to  the  different  Churches  which  He  founded. 


'  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  vi.  1-6. 


130  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Here  is  the  one  to  the  Philippian  Church.  St.  Paul 
joins  St.  Timothy  with  him,  and  then  we  find  from 
his  salutation  that  there  are  two  other  orders  of  the 
ministry  besides,  making  three  in  all:  "To  all  the 
saints  which  are  at  Philippi,"  he  says,  "with  the 
bishops  and  deacons."  *  There  are  other  epistles,  too, 
and  in  them  we  read  of  presbyters  (sometimes  called 
bishops),  as  well  as  deacons.  St.  Titus  is  bidden  by 
St.  Paul  to  ordain  them  in  every  city  (Titus  i.  5)  ; 
St.  Timothy  is  given  charge  concerning  them  (I.  Tim. 
V.  17)  ;  and  in  one  of  St.  Peter's  epistles  also  (1. 
Peter  v.  1)  we  find  him  exhorting  the  elders  or  pres- 
byters. Moreover,  these  elders,  like  the  deacons,  are 
evidently  of  the  clergy,  not  merely  specially  appointed 
laymen. 

^or  does  the  office  of  the  apostles  cease  with 
themselves.  Not  to  prolong  the  subject  further,  we 
should  find,  if  we  had  the  Greek  originals  of  the  New 
Testament  in  our  hands,  the  following  list  of  those 
who  are  expressly  called  apostles,  in  addition  to  the 
Twelve :  Matthias,  chosen  by  lot  to  be  of  their  num- 
ber; Paul,  "an  apostle  not  of  men,  neither  by  man, 
but  by  Jesus  Christ,"  James,  whom  tradition  names 
as  the  first  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  Barnabas,  Andron- 
icus,  Junias,  Epaphroditus,  Timothy,  Titus,  Silas, 
and  Luke.  "Moreover,  they  are  seen  doing  the  same 
work  as  the  Twelve.  For  example,  history  and  tradi- 
tion bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  the  Apostle  Timothy 
was  the  first  Bishop  of  Ephesus,  and  the  Apostle 


*  Philippians  i.  1. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  131 

Titus  the  first  Bishop  of  Crete,  being  ordained  and 
appointed  thereto  by  the  Apostle  Paul.  The  Epistles 
of  St.  Paul  to  Timothy  and  Titus  not  only  accord 
with  this  statement,  but  are  irreconcilably  absurd  on 
any  other  supposition;  for  they  show  that  these  men 
were  left  by  St.  Paul  not  only  with  power  to  do  such 
things  as  all  presbyters  could  do,  but  also  to  superin- 
tend the  whole  work  of  the  Church  in  their  respective 
jurisdictions — to  give  order  concerning  the  doctrine 
which  the  presbyters  were  to  preach;  to  rectify  all 
deficiencies;  to  ordain  presbyters  in  all  the  cities;  to 
examine  into  the  qualifications  of  all  candidates  for 
the  priesthood  and  the  diaconate,  being  careful  to  lay 
hands  suddenly  on  no  man.  .  .  .  And  whence  came 
all  this  authority  and  power?  St.  Paul  tells  us,  for 
he  says  to  his  ^Son  Timothy',  'Stir  up  the  gift  of  God 
which  is  in  thee  by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands.' " 

Yes — there  were  three  orders  of  the  ministry,  dea- 
cons, presbyters,  and  apostles;  and  the  apostolic  office 
is  carried  on  to  the  successors  of  the  original  Twelve. 
Why  the  name  ^^ishop"  afterward  came  to  be  re- 
stricted to  them  we  cannot  now  stop  to  explain. 

(5)  Well,  you  say,  now  we  have  the  whole  sum 
and  substance  of  Christianity.  I  must  be  a  follower 
of  Christ,  baptized  in  His  Name,  and  by  the  laying  on 
of  apostolic  hands  I  must  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

Again,  wait  a  bit !  There  is  something  more.  If 
we  are  still,  in  imagination,  to  company  with  these 
early  Christians,  we  shall  find  that  they  meet  for 
worship.     They  "continue  steadfastly  in  the  apostles' 


132  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in  breaking  of  bread, 
and  in  prayers."  And  this  worship,  at  first  daily,  is 
always  the  special  feature  of  Sunday.  We  are  at 
Troas,  when  St.  Paul  preaches,  and  it  is  on  "the  first 
day  of  the  week"  that  "the  disciples  came  together  to 
break  bread." ' 

Moreover,  the  worship  is  liturgical:  it  consists  of 
"the  prayers" — ^that  is  the  usual,  well-known,  set 
forms  of  prayer,  not  prayer  generally. 

And  what  was  the  worship  ?  It  was  "the  breaking 
of  the  bread" — in  other  words,  the  Holy  Communion 
— and  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  not  a  service  to  be  held 
two  or  three  times  a  year,  but  every  "first  day  of  the 
week". 

And  how  was  it  regarded  ?  Did  these  early  Chris- 
tians consider  it  a  mere  memorial  feast?  Not  so. 
If  we  still  hold  in  our  hands  those  epistles  of  the 
great  St.  Paul,  we  find  that  he  believed  that  in  this 
service  the  Lord  Christ  was  really  present.  Writing 
to  the  Corinthians,  he  tells  them  how  the  Eucharist 
was  instituted,  and  then  warns  them  in  solemn  words 
to  be  careful  to  communicate  only  after  due  and 
worthy  preparation;  for  "whosoever  shall  eat  this 
bread  and  drink  this  cup  unworthily  shall  be  guilty 
of  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord."  Why?  Be- 
cause 'Tie  that  eateth  and  drinketh  unworthily,  eat^th 
and  drinketh  damnation  to  himself,  not  discerning 
the  Lord's  Body,"  —  that  is,  not  discerning  the 
presence,  though  it  is  really  and  truly  there. 


Acts  of  the  Apostles,  xx,  7. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  133 

(6)  So  then,  you  say,  we  at  last  have  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  Church.  We  shall  do  all  this  ourselves, 
and  when  our  children  are  grown  up  we  shall  have 
them  baptized,  too. 

But  why  wait?  If  we  go  into  any  of  these  early 
Christian  assemblies  we  shall  see  not  adults  only,  but 
we  shall  find  baptized  children  there.  St.  Peter,  when 
he  urged  the  first  converts  to  be  baptized,  said,  "The 
promise  is  unto  you,  and  your  children";  St.  Paul, 
writing  to  those  who  were  members  of  the  Church, 
addresses  children  as  well  as  adults ;  and  we  hear  that 
whole  families  and  households  have  been  baptized — 
among  whom,  surely,  there  were  children.* 

(7)  And  now,  you  say,  all  is  clear.  We  have 
found  the  Church,  we  have  entered  its  fold  and  re- 
ceived its  gifts  of  grace.  Here  we  will  stay,  free  from 
sin,  so  long  as  life  remains. 

Alas,  some  day  temptation  proves  too  great,  and 
you  fall,  and  fall  grievously.  You  ask  pardon  of 
God,  but  there  comes  no  comfort  to  your  soul;  you 
are  weak,  and  you  sin  again,  and  with  this  fresh  error 
staring  you  in  the  face,  you  fear  that  God  will  not 
forgive  you.  As  you  are  thus  troubled,  weary  and 
heavy  laden,  you  meet  St.  John.  He  hears  your  sad 
tale,  lifts  his  hands  over  you,  blesses  you,  and  bids 
you  depart  in  peace.  For  you  are  forgiven,  he  says ; 
you  need  not  doubt  it;  my  words,  as  I  speak  them  by 
authority  of  God,  bring  you  the  blessed  assurance. 


*  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  ii.  38-39 ;  Ephesians  vi.  1 ;  Colos- 
sians  iii.  20;  Acts  xvi.  15,  33;  I  Cor.  i.  16. 


134  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Did  not  our  Lord  Himself  give  us  this  power?  Did 
not  He  say,  as  He  breathed  on  us,  "Eeceive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost:  whose  soever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  re- 
mitted unto  them;  and  whose  soever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are  retained"  ? 

(8)  So,  as  you  depart  in  blessed  peace  and  calm, 
you  think  of  the  angelic  face  of  the  saintly  Apostle, 
and  you  say,  Surely,  surely  here  I  have  the  Church's 
head,  here  is  the  father  of  all  the  faithful.  Another, 
however,  remembers  the  marvellous  labors  of  the  won- 
derful Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  and  interrupts  you,  No, 
St.  Paul  is  the  head  of  the  Church.  And  yet  an- 
other, No,  it  is  St.  Peter:  to  him  the  Lord  gave  the 
keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 

As  we  dispute,  there  enters  one  who  attended  the 
first  council  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem.''  He  tells 
us  that  none  of  these  presided  at  the  council,  but  that 
its  president  was  St.  James,  not  of  the  original 
Twelve;  he  says  that  the  apostles,  elders,  and  breth- 
ren (the  bishops,  clergy,  and  laity)  there  came  to- 
gether; he  tells  us  how,  many  years  later,  St.  Paul 
withstood  St.  Peter  face  to  face;  in  many  ways  he 
makes  us  understand  that  the  apostles  were  equals, 
members  of  a  college,  or  body,  and  that  the  head  of 
the  Church  is  neither  St.  Peter,  nor  St.  Paul,  nor  St. 
John — its  Head  is  our  Eisen  Lord,  the  Lord  Christ 
who  rules  it  from  His  throne  in  heaven. 

So  you  have  the  picture  of  the  primitive  Church. 


Acts  of  the  Apostles,  xv,  1-31. 


CHOOSING  A  CHURCH  135 

What  body,  of  all  the  Christian  communions  about 
us,  resembles  it? 

You  have  seen  what  its  characteristics  are:  En- 
trance is  by  baptism  for  young  and  old;  then  comes 
confirmation,  the  laying  on  of  hands  for  the  seven- 
fold gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  always  by  an  apostle 
or  his  successor;  then  Holy  Communion,  celebrated, 
not  two  or  three  times  a  year,  but  every  Lord's  Day; 
then,  if  the  soul  requires  it,  absolution  by  a  duly  com- 
missioned ambassador  of  God;  there  is  a  liturgical 
worship,  as  we  should  expect  with  those  accustomed 
to  the  prayers  of  the  synagogue  and  the  elaborate 
ritual  of  the  temple;  there  is  a  threefold  ministry, 
of  apostolic  origin  —  threefold,  as  the  ministry  of 
the  Jews  (High-priest,  Priest,  and  Levite)  would 
foreshadow. 

What  modern  communion  is  most  like  the  picture  ? 
Surely  not  the  Eoman.  Apostolic  it  is;  we  cannot 
deny  that  it  is  a  branch  of  the  One,  Catholic  Church. 
But  where,  in  this  picture  of  primitive  Christianity, 
do  you  find  an  infallible  Pope?  Where  do  you  find 
bishops  degraded  to  be  merely  the  local  agents  of  a 
Pope?  Where  do  you  see  the  mutilated  sacrament? 
Where  compulsory  confession?  Where  the  excessive 
reverence  of  the  saints?  Where  the  cultus  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  her  elevation  from  the  chief  place 
among  saints  (which  is  undoubtedly  hers)  to  the 
position  of  Queen  of  Heaven  and  Chief  Intercessor, 
through  whom  special  access  to  God  is  to  be  had? 

Nor  does  the  picture  find  its  counterpart  in  the 
modem  denominations.     With  them  we  do  not  find 


136  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  threefold  ministry,  the  apostolic  order,  the  fre- 
quent communion,  the  high  regard  for  the  sacra- 
ments, the  unvarying  insistence  on  baptism,  and  the 
unfailing  faith  in  the  eucharistic  presence.  There 
we  have  no  confirmation,  no  belief  in  the  ministerial 
function  of  blessing  and  absolving,  no  dignity  of 
worship. 

When  therefore  you  ask  the  Episcopalian  who  has 
been  mentioned,  why  he  belongs  to  his  Church,  his 
answer  will  run  something  like  this:  I  am  a  Bible 
Christian.  Because  I  am  a  Bible  Christian  I  am  an 
Episcopalian,  a  Catholic  Churchman.  Because  I  am 
a  Bible  Christian,  I  am  an  American  Catholic,  not  a 
Roman  Catholic.  Because  I  am  a  Bible  Christian,  I 
must  belong  to  some  Church,  and  I  choose  this  be- 
cause it  seems  to  me  to  be  not  only  American  and 
Catholic  (or  primitive)  but  Biblical  and  Evangelical. 
When  I  came  into  the  Episcopal  Church,  I  believe  I 
came  into  the  Church  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles. 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION    137 


XV. 

THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION 

AT  heart  the  men  of  to-day  are  at  least  as  good  as 
their  predecessors  of  earlier  days  and  if  they 
are  not  found  in  their  places  in  church  on  Sunday,  it 
is  more  often  than  not  because  no  plain,  definite 
reason  has  been  given  why  they  should  be  there.  We 
are  to  disabuse  our  minds  of  the  idea  that  men  and 
women  stay  away  from  church  because  they  have  no 
religion.  They  stay  away  because,  for  the  most  part, 
the  matter  has  not  been  presented  to  them  strongly 
on  the  divine  side.  Their  idea  of  the  Church  is  that 
it  rests  on  very  much  the  same  level  as  a  fraternal 
society.  They  think  of  it  as  an  institution  for  incul- 
cating moral  teaching,  and  if  they  do  not  identify 
themselves  with  it,  the  reason  will  often  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  they  have  no  higher  conception  of  it 
than  this  fraternal  and  social  one.  Possibly  this  is 
especially  true  of  men.  They  think  of  the  Church, 
when  they  think  of  it  at  all,  as  a  large  association 
doing,  in  its  way,  very  much  what  other  fraternal 
associations  do;  an  organization  that  is  very  good  in 
its  general  scope,  but  is  quite  unnecessary  for  them. 


138  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

They  like  to  have  their  wives  go  to  church,  they 
wish  their  children  to  go  to  Sunday  school,  and  they 
themselves  will  attend  some  service  occasionally,  but 
they  do  not  regard  the  Church  as  having  anything 
in  essence  greater  than  what  a  lodge  would  give  them. 

What  we  need,  therefore,  is  to  show  them  clearly 
and  emphatically  the  real  difference  between  the 
Church  and  all  other  organizations.  They  discuss 
the  Church  now  as  a  society;  regard  various  denom- 
inations as  they  would  look  at  different  fraternal  asso- 
ciations, and  would  choose  one  or  the  other,  just  as 
they  would  choose  the  Masons  rather  than  the  Odd 
Fellows,  or  the  Knights  of  Pythias  rather  than  the 
American  Mechanics,  or  the  Eoyal  Arcanum  rather 
than  either.  We  must  show  them  that  it  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  human  society.  One  thing  differ- 
entiates it  from  every  other  organization,  it  is  a  home 
of  grace.  Various  societies  show  men  what  is  good 
and  right  and  true ;  the  Church  does  this,  too.  It  is 
not  merely  that  the  Church  does  it  better  than  they 
can;  the  Church  is  the  repository  of  Grod's  grace  to 
enable  them  to  do  what  other  societies  can  only  point 
out  and  recommend.  In  other  words,  the  Church 
must  be  presented,  not  occasionally  but  constantly, 
as  a  divine  organism,  not  a  human  society;  as  the 
Body  of  Christ,  full  of  His  life,  offering  us  divine 
strength  and  help,  giving  men  grace  to  do  what 
conscience  points  out  as  their  duty. 

"Gospel  means  good  news,  not  good  advice."  The 
Church  is  here,  not  merely  to  give  us  fair  counsels, 
to  teach  us  that  this  thing  or  the  other  is  right 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION    139 

and  this  or  the  other  wrong,  not  simply  to  tell  men 
that  they  should  be  more  unselfish  and  more  thought- 
ful of  their  brethren,  or  even  to  give  them  a  satisfac- 
tory form  of  worship  and  so  lift  up  their  hearts  to 
God.  All  this  the  Church  can  do  and  do  much  better 
than  any  of  the  human  organizations  that  men  allow 
to  take  her  place,  but  the  Gospel,  as  we  all  know,  is 
much  more  than  this ;  it  is  the  good  news  of  the  Incar- 
nate God,  who  suffered  and  died  for  us,  has  given  us 
the  great  model  of  all  living,  and  now  abides  in  His 
Church,  filling  it  with  His  own  divine  life,  animating 
it  through  His  Spirit,  bringing  its  members  into 
contact  with  Himself,  and  so  providing  them  with 
that  constant  supply  of  grace,  by  which  and  by  which 
alone  they  can  follow  in  His  steps. 

To  make  this  perfectly  clear  we  need  to  reiterate 
some  things  that  have  been  said  before.  Man,  we 
have  seen,  is  a  fallen  creature;  he  was  meant  for 
better  things.  God  the  Son  has  come  to  lift  him  up 
once  more  into  the  beauty  of  holiness,  that  dignity  of 
true  humanity  for  which  he  was  made.  How,  then, 
does  our  Lord  accomplish  this  ?  Our  hope  in  Christ, 
we  may  answer,  lies  in  this:  not  merely  that  in 
Him  we  have  a  perfect  example,  nor  that  His  death 
redeems  us  from  sin,  but  that  with  sin  forgiven  and 
a  fresh  start  made  possible,  something  more  should 
still  be  done,  our  corrupted  nature  must  be  contin- 
ually cleansed  and  renewed  by  the  communication  of 
Christ's  life  to  us.  The  sacrifice  of  the  cross  has 
given  remission  of  sins,  the  life  of  Christ  is  a  model 


140  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

on  which  we  are  to  build  the  new  life,  but  that  life  is 
to  be  His  life  within  us. 

Not  long  since,  in  a  railroad  accident,  a  young 
man  was  terribly  scalded.  For  months  he  lay  in  an 
hospital  suffering  intense  agony.  He  had  been  so 
badly  burned  that  the  flesh  would  not  heal  again  fresh 
and  clean.  Finally  the  physicians  announced  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  graft  new  and  healthy  skin 
upon  the  scalded  members.  Friends  of  the  sick  man 
offered  their  help,  and  hundreds  of  small  pieces 
of  skin  taken  from  their  bodies  were  grown  on  the 
injured  parts  of  the  maimed  body  of  their  comrade, 
until  finally  the  wounds  healed  and  the  man  was  dis- 
charged cured.  Now  something  similar  to  this  must 
be  done  to  heal  the  sickness  of  men's  souls.  We  are 
to  be  taken  into  Christ,  joined  to  Him,  so  that,  as  it 
were.  His  flesh  and  ours  come  in  touch  and  in  that 
union  the  health  and  cleansing  strength  of  His 
own  perfect  humanity  are  given  to  us.  We  are  to  be 
brought  into  direct  contact  with  our  Lord,  a  relation 
so  close  that  our  nature  is  sanctified  in  Him.  So  He 
Himself  tells  us  that  He  is  the  vine  and  we  are  the 
branches:  as  the  sap  flows  from  the  trunk  out  into 
the  branch,  so  the  life  of  Christ  is  to  flow  out  into  our 
souls,  till  the  strength  that  is  His  becomes  ours,  and 
we  are  once  more  full  of  spiritual  energy  and  power. 

How  is  this  to  be  effected?  It  will  be  seen  now 
why  we  insist  upon  the  Church's  place  in  the  scheme 
of  redemption:  it  is  because  St.  Paul  tells  us  that 
there  we  are  brought  into  this  close  and  intimate 
relationship  with  Christ.     The  Church,  he  tells  us, 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION     141 

is  the  very  Body  of  Christ,  and  by  baptism  we  are 
brought  into  that  Body,  made  members  of  it,  in  as 
vital  a  relation  with  its  divine  Head  as  are  the  mem- 
bers of  the  human  body  with  the  soul  that  gives  it  life. 

The  Church  is  the  Body  of  Christ.  We  shall  see 
what  it  means,  perhaps,  if  we  ask  what  our  own  bodies 
are  to  us.  The  body  is  but  the  expression  of  the  life 
within.  Soul  and  body  are  united  in  the  closest  pos- 
sible relation,  so  that  the  outer  frame  reveals  the 
inner  spirit,  the  soul  that  lies  behind  it.  What  a 
mirror  of  the  soul  the  face  is,  for  example  !  The  saint 
generally  looks  the  saint ;  the  sensual  or  worldly  man 
often  betrays  liis  true  character  in  every  feature  of  his 
countenance.  Now  the  Church  is  the  Body  of  Christ : 
therefore  those  who  are  members  of  this  Body  are  in 
as  real  a  relation  to  Him  as  are  the  members  of  the 
human  frame  to  the  living  soul  that  indwells  and  con- 
trols it.  When  our  Lord  works  His  will  upon  men, 
He  does  it  by  joining  them  to  Himself,  making  their 
life  a  part  of  His  own,  and  bringing  them  into  union 
with  Himself  in  a  divine  organism. 

That  is  part  of  what  we  mean  when  we  repeat  the 
familiar  statement  that  the  Church  is  the  extension  of 
the  Incarnation.  Just  as,  at  the  Incarnation,  the  Son 
of  God  took  a  body  to  Himself  and  in  that  was  seen 
and  known  of  men,  so  that  they  might  actually  come 
into  touch  with  Him  and  in  the  contact  of  every-day 
life  place  themselves  under  His  influence,  so  the 
Church  of  God  now  is  an  organism  full  of  Christ's 
life,  its  members  parts  of  a  body  so  closely  united  to 


142  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Him  that  they  are  bone  of  His  bone  and  flesh  of  His 
flesh — members  of  His  body,  of  His  flesh,  and  of  His 
bones,  as  St.  Paul  puts  it — a  body  in  which  His  life 
flows  in  sacramental  grace,  so  that  by  means  of  its 
sacred  ordinances  we  may  come  into  closer  relation 
with  Him  than  did  those  who  looked  into  His  face, 
touched  His  hands,  and  reverently  knelt  at  His  feet 
when  He  was  here  visibly  among  men.  There  is  a 
grandeur  and  richness  in  this  conception  that  puts  to 
shame  that  thought  of  the  Church  which  makes  it 
merely  a  collection  of  believers,  a  gathering  together 
of  those  who  are  trying  to  follow  Christ.  We  are 
more  than  that,  we  are  members  of  our  Lord,  joined 
to  Him  by  invisible  bonds. 

Moreover,  this  union  is  not  something  that  we 
can  bring  about  by  an  act  of  our  own;  it  is  effected 
by  our  Lord  Himself,  through  the  conferring  upon 
us  of  a  new  life.  The  gift  is  so  great  that  we  speak 
of  it  as  nothing  less  than  a  re-birth  in  Him.  St.  Paul 
says  that  we  are  actually  buried  in  Christ,  and  out  of 
this  burial  rise  into  a  new  life  in  His  nature.  In 
baptism  we  "put  on"  Christ.  The  change  is  like  the 
grafting  of  a  branch  into  the  vine,  like  the  transplant- 
ing of  a  seed  from  a  soil  in  which  it  could  not  ger- 
minate into  one  from  which  it  can  draw  sustenance 
and  bud  and  bear  fruit. 

If  we  can  succeed  in  impressing  men  with  this 
idea  of  the  Church,  we  shall  surely  win  them  to  her 
fold.  That  many  hold  themselves  aloof  from  organ- 
ized Christianity  is  not,  we  are  sure,  a  sign  that  they 
are  irreligious.     It  is  merely  an  indication  of  our 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION    143 

failure  to  show  that  the  Church  is  a  matter  of  vital 
necessity,  because  it  is  a  household  of  grace  into  which 
men  come  through  the  sacrament  of  life  and  in  which 
they  are  strengthened  by  the  food  of  the  soul. 

There  are  one  or  two  simple  truths  springing  out 
of  this  thought  of  the  Church  as  the  Body  of  Christ 
which  especially  need  to  be  emphasized. 

(1)  We  should  never  forget,  for  example,  that 
all  baptized  persons  are  members  of  the  Church  of 
Christ.  It  is  surely  of  value  to  insist  upon  this  in 
a  day  when  the  visible  unity  of  the  Church  is  broken. 
After  all,  despite  our  unhappy  divisions,  there  is  here 
the  germ  of  a  fuller  unity.  All  who  are  baptized, 
whether  they  be  Greeks,  Romans,  Anglicans,  or  Prot- 
estants, are  members  of  the  Body  of  Christ.  They 
may  not  live  a  true  life  of  fellowship,  they  may  in 
various  ways  hinder  the  completeness  of  their 
union  with  Christ,  their  Head,  but  their  membership 
remains,  nevertheless;  it  can  never,  while  life  lasts, 
be  wholly  lost ;  it  may  always,  by  grace  like  that  which 
first  produced  it,  be  restored  and  perfected.  Here  is 
a  bond  which  we  all  recognize  in  theory.  If  we  would 
once  take  it  as  a  basis  of  practical  action,  it  might 
prove  of  help  to  a  broader  and  more  charitable  effort 
toward  reunion.  With  Episcopalians  there  are  some 
who  pray  for  corporate  reunion  with  Eome  and  the 
East;  there  are  others  whose  love  goes  out  to  the 
thousands  of  Protestants  about  us,  friends,  neighbors, 
relatives;  but  how  few  there  are  who  remember  that 
we  are  all  brethren,  who  have,  therefore,  the  kindly 


144  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

sympathy   and  ready  understanding  to  work  for  a 
closer  -iim'ty  on  both  sides ! 

Yet  all  are  members  of  the  one  Body.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  is  not  this  or  that  apostolically  organized 
branch,  nor  all  of  them  together,  but  the  entire  body 
of  baptized  believers.  Of  these  some,  indeed,  may 
have  partially  severed  their  connection  with  Christ, 
by  sin  or  schism;  some  may  have  failed  to  carry  out 
their  union  with  Him  to  its  full  completeness;  but 
all  are  members,  even  though  by  their  separation  from 
the  apostolic  order  they  may  have  missed  something 
of  the  continued  flowing  of  the  life  of  Christ  that  ever 
renews  itself  in  the  Body.  My  own  body  has  many 
members  and  in  some  of  them  the  circulation  may  be 
impeded,  so  that  they  have  partly  lost  their  strength, 
but  they  are  members  for  all  that  and  the  body  would 
be  but  a  maimed  and  incomplete  thing,  if  because  they 
are  weak  they  were  to  be  cut  off.  This  does  not  mean 
that  every  society  of  Christian  people  is  a  true  branch 
of  the  apostolic  Church.  The  organization  of  the 
Catholic  Church  is  that  which  is  administered  by 
bishops  who  are  charged  with  our  Lord's  commission ; 
but  its  membership  includes  all  who  are  baptized  in 
the  Triune  Name  of  God. 

(2)  Again,  it  is  this  thought  of  our  individual 
membership  in  Christ  that  makes  the  conception  of 
the  Church  just  set  forth  of  such  practical  personal 
importance.  If  we  are  members  of  Christ,  the  fact 
is  full  of  the  deepest  possible  meaning.  Every  sep- 
arate member  of  my  body  has  its  use ;  the  body  would 
not  be  complete  without  it,  could  not  do  its  work 


THE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  INCARNATION    145 

perfectly  if  deprived  of  it.  To  cut  off  any  single 
member  would  be  to  maim  and  disfigure  the  whole. 
In  like  manner  (we  may  say  it  reverently)  each  one  of 
us  is  necessary  in  our  Lord's  Body;  He  has  for  each 
one  his  special  place  and  his  special  work ;  He  uses  us^ 
the  least,  the  poorest,  the  meanest,  the  weakest  of  us. 
Each  has  his  individual  work.  No  one  else  can  do  it 
as  he  can,  for  he  was  made  for  it  and  if  he  does  not 
accept  the  task  possibly  it  will  never  be  done  at  all. 

We  do  this  work  with  a  strength  other  than  our 
own.  I  move  my  finger;  back  of  it  is  my  hand,  my 
arm,  the  power  of  my  body,  the  entire  force  of  my 
will.  So  it  is  with  us  in  our  union  with  Christ.  Are 
we  trying  to  do  something  for  Him  and  for  our  fel- 
lows? Well,  back  of  our  weak  little  effort  is  the 
Church's  strength,  back  of  that  the  will  of  our  Lord 
Himself.  We  are  working  for  Him,  we  sometimes 
say;  rather.  He  is  working  through  us.  All  of  His 
strength  is  back  of  our  small  endeavor ;  all  of  His  will 
behind  us,  all  of  His  energy  moving  us  on.  We  can 
never  fail.  We  have  only  to  surrender  ourselves  to 
Him,  make  ourselves  His  instruments,  and  things 
are  sure  to  come  out  right.  One  who  is  baptized  into 
the  Body  of  Christ's  Church  "finds  himself  encircled 
by  a  power  of  inexhaustible  strength  and  grace,  in  the 
might  of  whose  everlasting  glory  he  may  forever  and 
ever  be  quickened  by  undying  fires,  and  renewed, 
and  replenished,  and  reinvigorated  by  the  ever  new 
and  ever  increasing  splendor  of  a  life  that  can  never 
fade,  or  diminish,  or  slacken,  or  fail."  ^ 
^  H.  S.  Holland :  Logic  and  Life. 


146  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

(3)  We  must  be  on  our  guard,  however,  against 
making  this  conception  of  the  Church  a  mechanical 
one.  No  gifts  of  grace  are  ever  effective  independ- 
ently of  our  use  of  them.  Though  we  are  incorporated 
into  Christ  as  members  of  His  body,  we  must,  each 
for  himself,  use  the  grace  that  flows  in  the  body,  or 
our  privilege  has  but  put  us  in  worse  condition  than 
before.  Without  that  lively  faith  which  enables  the 
soul  to  grow  on  what  it  has  received,  we  are  as  if  the 
hand  were  bound  up,  the  branch  of  the  vine  cut  away. 
What  are  we,  except  this  faith  keep  us  ever  abiding 
in  Christ?  Lifeless,  senseless,  helpless  clay — ener- 
gized and  quickened  into  a  body,  then,  only  as  we 
breathe  of  His  Spirit  and  so  take  in  His  life.  Let  us, 
therefore,  as  we  praise  Him  for  the  gift  of  His  grace, 
pray  that  its  flow  within  us  may  never  slacken,  or 
the  torpor  of  its  sloth  creep  over  us;  that  His  warm 
life  blood  may  drive  away  the  chill  of  unfaithfulness, 
its  pulsating  strength  ever  rouse  and  quicken  us.  We 
are  members  of  Christ's  body ;  God  grant  that  we  may 
never  fall  away  and  wither  and  die ! 


THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED  147 


XVI. 

THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED 

ALL  men  fell  in  Adam  and  the  Incarnation  of 
God  the  Son  is  to  effect  their  redemption.  This 
our  Lord  accomplishes  through  His  Church,  which 
is  the  extension  of  the  Incarnation,  the  Body  of  Christ, 
left  here  in  the  world  to  manifest  His  life  and  show 
forth  His  death  till  He  come.  In  this  Church  we 
come  into  spiritual  contact  with  our  Lord,  we  are 
knit  up  into  His  sacred  humanity  and  are  brought 
into  as  close  a  union  with  Him  as  that  which  joins  a 
body  and  its  members,  a  vine  and  its  branches. 

We  read  certain  passages  of  the  Bible  which  tell 
us  of  this  relation  of  Christ  and  His  people  and  their 
mysterious  language  of  promise  is  so  rich  and  deep 
that  it  is  impossible  to  exhaust  the  fulness  of  the 
meaning.  Yet,  wonderful  as  the  promises  are,  the 
truth  is  so  hard  for  us  to  understand  and  realize.  We 
fall  so  short  of  what  it  seems  to  imply.  Glimpses  of 
heaven  open  to  us  and  then  we  fall  back  to  earth 
again,  the  soaring  spirit  held  down  by  the  flesh.  Yes, 
we  say,  all  this  may  be  possible,  but  how  can  I  believe 
that  it  has  happened  to  me  ?    What  do  I  know,  what 


148  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

can  I  know,  of  such  heights  of  communion,  such  ful- 
ness of  divine  fellowship  ?  I  have  never  felt  that  all 
this  has  come  to  me ;  the  promises  are  beautiful  ones, 
but  so  far  as  I  am  concerned  they  are  unrealized 
ideals. 

Just  here  comes  the  sacramental  system  of  the 
Church  as  a  help  to  our  appreciating  the  truth  of  this 
communion  with  God.  Yes,  it  tells  us,  there  is  such 
a  life  of  fellowship.  God's  grace  is  here  for  us  and 
here  in  such  fashion  that  we  may  indeed  come  in 
touch  with  it,  thrill  with  it,  as  the  wire  quivers  under 
the  electric  current,  and  the  branch  throbs  with  the 
inflowing  sap,  as  the  body  is  quickened  and  vivified 
by  the  pulsating  blood.  There  is  such  a  life,  there  are 
such  gifts  of  grace.  They  come  in  such  a  way  that 
we  have  absolute  testimony  of  their  reality.  God 
knows  our  weakness,  knows  how  we  are  bound  down 
by  what  is  earthly  and  material.  We  are  not  dis- 
embodied spirits,  we  are  here  in  the  flesh,  with  all 
the  drawbacks  of  the  flesh,  and  so  when  God 
brings  us  this  grace  He  brings  it  through  sensible 
channels.  He  ties  up  spiritual  things  and  material, 
so  to  speak.  There  is  always  something  we  can  see, 
touch,  taste,  handle.  Faith  is  stimulated  by  sense 
and  we  can  believe  because  there  is  something  on 
which  belief  can  rest,  which  it  can  grasp  and  hold. 
So,  for  us  there  need  be  no  fears  about  the  indwelling 
of  the  divine  nature  in  us.  We  know  we  have  been 
born  again,  because  we  have  submitted  to  that  ordi- 
nance which  is  the  means  of  admission  into  the  power 
of  Christ's  risen  life.     There  need  be  no  anxiety  as 


THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED  149 

to  whether  we  have  gone  through  certain  profound 
experiences,  we  know  when  it  all  happened ;  the  life  is 
ours  and  it  only  remains  for  us  to  appropriate  and 
use  it.  We  know,  too,  that  there  was  a  time  when  the 
fulness  of  the  Spirit  became  ours,  because  at  a  certain 
moment  that  was  done  for  us  which  is  the  ordained 
means  of  His  coming  to  men.  We  know  that  we  have 
Christ  within  us,  in  all  His  power;  in  Holy  Com- 
munion we  have  the  outward  sign,  the  thing  that  the 
eyes  can  see  and  the  hands  touch,  the  outward  sign  as 
the  pledge  and  assurance  of  the  inward  grace. 

Now,  notice :  this  does  not  do  away  with  faith,  or 
take  its  place.  We  need  faith;  it  is  the  great  neces- 
sity, that  personal  knowledge  of  our  Lord,  that  indi- 
vidual apprehension  of  Him.  We  need  grace  also 
and  when  grace  is  offered  it  is  the  part  of  faith 
to  appropriate  and  use  it.  People  sometimes  argue 
against  sacramental  doctrine  as  if  a  sacrament  were 
regarded  by  Churchmen  as  a  kind  of  magical  charm, 
bestowing  grace  by  the  mere  fact  of  its  being  admin- 
istered. "How  can  you  suppose,"  they  will  ask,  "that 
a  mere  ceremony  can  bring  me  any  grace?  Do  not 
the  facts  prove  the  very  opposite?  I  see  so  many 
baptized  people  still  living  in  sin:  how,  then,  can 
you  say  that  baptism  brings  a  new  gift  of  life  ?  How 
can  you  believe  that  confirmation  is  a  bestowal  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  when  confirmed  people  so  often  fail  to 
manifest  in  their  lives  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit?  How 
can  you  believe  that  we  receive  the  Body  and  Blood 
of  Christ  in  the  Holy  Communion,  when  it  is  plain 
to  anyone  who  will  give  the  matter  a  thought,  that 


150  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  most  regular  communicants  are  often  far  less 
worthy  Christians  than  those  who  rarely  attend  church 
and  are  never  seen  at  the  altar?" 

The  answer  is  the  same  that  was  given  in  the  last 
chapter.  The  gifts  of  God  are  spiritual  and  therefore 
should  never  be  regarded  as  mechanical  operations. 
Faith  and  grace  are  related  and  "while  the  sacraments 
actually  convey  to  us  the  food  of  the  soul,  a  gift  given 
from  without,  they  do  us  no  good  unless  there  be  a 
spirit  within  us  awake  to  what  is  being  given,  welcom- 
ing the  gift  and  ready  to  assimilate  or  digest  it  into 
our  spiritual  system"  just  as  common  bread  cannot 
nourish  us  or  do  us  any  good,  unless  it  be  eaten  with 
appetite  and  assimilated  and  digested. 

The  point  made  here  is,  that  possibly  grace  is 
brought  to  us  by  sacramental  means,  so  that  the  two 
may  react  upon  each  other.  The  faith  which  accepts 
grace  is  in  turn  aided  and  stimulated  by  the  means 
through  Avhich  grace  is  given.  This,  because  the  sac- 
raments are  "plain  and  visible  tokens,  whereby  we 
may  know  what  we  cannot  see."  Over  and  over  again, 
in  His  miracles,  our  Lord  used  material  means — His 
own  body,  His  hands.  His  garments,  the  common  clay, 
the  water  of  Siloam — for  the  conveying  of  a  healing 
gift.  Just  because  such  means  were  used  the  faith 
of  men  was  more  easily  aroused.  In  like  manner  we, 
now,  find  our  faith  quickened  by  the  fact  that  spir- 
itual things  are  linked  with  material,  the  presence 
of  the  supernatural  revealed  by  its  union  with  the 
natural. 


THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED  151 

There  is  no  picture  of  Christ  more  full  of  tender 
memories  and  associations  than  that  which  shows 
Him  as  the  Good  Physician  who  went  about  the  fields 
and  hills  of  Galilee  restoring  into  harmony  with  the 
beautiful  world  about  Him  the  disease-laden  bodies 
of  the  multitudes  of  sick  folk  who  came  to  Him  for 
help.  He  was  known  as  the  Healer  by  most  of  those 
who  first  crowded  to  see  Him.  Many  miracles  of 
wonder-working  power  are  ascribed  to  the  Divine 
Healer.  Whatever  difficulties  the  miracles  present,  or 
however  we  explain  them,  the  record  of  Christ's  gra- 
cious deeds  runs  so  closely  through  the  gospel  narra- 
tive that  it  is  like  a  thread  woven  into  cloth  which 
cannot  be  cut  out  without  destroying  the  garment. 

Everywhere  the  Master^s  group  of  disciples  went 
with  Him  on  His  errands  of  mercy  and  watched  Him 
at  His  work.  They  were  like  students  in  a  clinic 
with  eyes  fixed  on  the  busy  surgeon. 

One  remarkable  thing  they  learned  as  they  watched 
the  Great  Healer :  Instead  of  healing  all  His  patients 
by  wholesale  and  by  a  word  of  power,  He  took  them 
one  by  one  and — we  need  to  fix  our  attention  on  this 
— as  each  individual  came  for  treatment  some  mate- 
rial agency  was  used  in  the  accomplishment  of  the 
cure.  It  would  be  interesting  to  consider  each  of  our 
Lord's  miracles,  and  observe  the  carrying  out  of  the 
same  principle.  It  is  sufficient,  however,  to  say  that 
in  only  five  out  of  twenty-two  recorded  cases  of  mirac- 
ulous healing  does  He  dispense  with  material  means. 
Once,  for  example,  there  was  brought  to  Him  a  man 
who  was  deaf  and  had  an  impediment  in  his  speech. 


152  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

In  order  to  work  a  cure  He  need  not,  of  course,  do 
more  than  speak  the  word  of  divine  command;  but 
we  read  that  "He  took  him  aside  from  the  multitude, 
put  His  fingers  in  his  ears,  and  spit  and  touched  his 
tongue."  ^ 

All  this  was  a  sacramental  action;  there  were  the 
outward  signs  of  the  divine  power  at  work  within; 
there  was  that  which  enabled  the  man  to  feel  that 
something  was  being  done  for  him,  something  he 
could  see;  the  needed  faith  was  called  forth,  and 
faith  being  expectant  and  receptive  took  the  Healer 
at  His  word  and  the  cure  was  effected. 

So,  then,  faith  is  needed,  and  sacraments  are 
needed,  too.  Sacraments  are  the  means  by  which 
grace  comes  to  us.  Faith  is  the  assimilative  power 
of  the  soul  which  enables  us  to  make  use  of  the  grace. 
St.  Paul  joined  both  together.  No  one  could  insist 
more  strenuously  than  did  he  on  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  faith;  no  one,  on  the  other  hand,  could  state 
more  clearly  the  sacramental  doctrine,  as  when  he 
speaks  of  the  "laver  of  regeneration"  in  baptism,  of 
the  bestowal  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  of  the  presence  and  power  of  Christ  in  the 
Holy  Communion.  No  one  could  show  more  plainly 
the  union  of  the  two  things,  faith  and  grace,  than  the 
great  apostle  when  he  says,  "We  have  access  by  faith 
into  this  grace." 

What  we  have  just  seen  of  our  Lord's  method  of 


^  See  my  Back  to  Christ. 


THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED  153 

healing  is  surely  a  complete  answer  to  that  disposition 
which  fancies  that  the  spiritual  and  the  material  must 
be  set  in  opposition,  the  one  against  the  other,  as 
though  they  were  naturally  and  inevitably  incompat- 
ible. All  that  we  see  of  human  life  teaches  us  the 
contrary.  When  we  find  soul  and  body  influencing, 
and  influenced  by,  each  other,  we  should  be  more  than 
surprised  if  the  material  were  not  associated  with  the 
spiritual  in  the  redemption  of  those  who  exhibit  this 
twofold  nature  and  our  astonishment  would  increase 
at  the  remembrance  that  the  whole  process  of  redemp- 
tion rests  upon  the  principle  of  the  Incarnation,  of 
God  made  flesh,  the  spiritual  possessing  and  filling 
the  material  beyond  all  power  of  conception. 

Along  this  line  of  thought,  does  it  not  occur  to 
us  at  once  that  the  plan  of  redemption  involves  of 
necessity,  as  of  the  very  fitness  of  things,  the  employ- 
ment of  material  means  for  spiritual  ends?  Our 
bodies  are  to  be  redeemed  as  well  as  our  souls;  they 
also  are  to  rise  into  newness  of  life ;  and  so  that  which 
is  employed  in  their  redemption  is  one  in  kind  with 
them.  We  may  go  further,  and  add  that  not  only  are 
our  bodies  to  be  redeemed,  but  the  whole  material 
creation,  of  which  we  are  a  part,  is  to  be  lifted  up 
with  us  into  heavenly  places.  Through  our  bodies  we 
are  united  with  the  world  about  us.  When  man  fell, 
therefore,  nature  fell  with  him  and  became  "subject 
to  vanity,"  and  when  man  rises  again  the  whole  cre- 
ation will  be  raised  with  him.  It  may  be,  then,  that 
God  uses  the  things  of  nature  as  agencies  by  which 
His  life  is  brought  to  us,  because  in  so  doing  He  joins 


154  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

earthly  things  in  the  redemption  of  man,  the  head  and 
representative  of  nature.  This,  at  least,  seems  to  be 
St.  Paul's  meaning,  when  he  tells  us  that  "the  whole 
creation  was  subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its  own  will, 
but  by  reason  of  Him  who  subjected  it,  in  hope  that 
the  creation  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory 
of  the  children  of  God." 

If  this  view  be  true,  it  lifts  the  sacramental  system 
out  of  the  realm  of  mere  congruity  and  adaptation  to 
circumstance,  and  traces  its  origin  back  to  eternal 
fitness  and  necessity.  The  thought  has  breadth  and 
grandeur,  asserting  as  it  does  the  worth  and  dignity  of 
the  body,  declaring  it  to  be  a  sharer  with  the  soul  in 
redemption,  predicting  its  survival  and  future  devel- 
opment in  a  higher  state,  drawing  on  the  material 
world  for  help  and  using  as  instrumental  means  for 
spiritual  ends  things  below  the  intellectual  order, 
whereby  that  race  shall  be  aided  in  whose  recovery 
nature  herself  has  an  interest  and  a  direct  concern." 

At  any  rate,  we  see  that  the  Church's  doctrine 
meets  perfectly  man's  need  and  corresponds  exactly 
with  his  nature.  Nor  does  it  in  any  way  suggest  the 
unexpected  or  the  unusual.  Why  should  not  grace 
come  by  sacramental  means?  Is  not  man  himself  a 
sacrament:  his  body  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
the  inner  spirit  ?  Is  not  the  world,  indeed,  the  great- 
est of  all  sacraments:  suggesting  through  the  senses 
the  divine  life  that  lies  behind  its  material  manifesta- 


^  Dix :  The  Sacramental  System,  lecture  i. 


THE  INCARNATION  APPLIED  155 

tions?  Nay,  as  man's  spirit  is  so  closely  related  to 
his  body,  is  not  the  whole  spiritual  world  in  like 
manner  just  as  near  the  material?  Need  it  be  sur- 
prising that  the  water  of  baptism,  the  bread  and  the 
wine  of  the  Eucharist,  should  but  veil  and  hide  a  pres- 
ence and  power  within  ?  Is  not  this,  in  truth,  exactly 
what  lies  before  us  every  time  we  turn  our  eyes  upon 
the  wonders  of  God's  natural  creation?  Everything 
visible  in  the  world  expresses  some  spiritual  meaning 
and  contains  some  spiritual  force.  All  nature  is 
sacramental.  "Human  science  and  Holy  Scripture 
unite  their  voices  in  teaching  us  that  beneath  the 
world  of  sense,  penetrating  and  vivifying  it,  there  is 
a  world  of  spirit;  that  what  we  see  and  touch  is  but 
the  crust  and  shell,  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
unseen  realities,  truly  present,  though  sense  cannot 
perceive  them".^ 

Two  worlds  are  ours,  'tis  only  sin 

Forbids  us  to  descry 
The  mystic  heaven  and  earth  within 

Clear  as  the  sea  and  sky. 


^  MacColl :  The  Reformation  Settlement,  chapter  v. 


156  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XVII. 
THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT 

EXCEPT  a  man  be  born  again  he  cannot  see  the 
kingdom  of  God.  There  must  be  an  entirely 
new  beginning.  Xo  principle  can  bring  forth  results 
greater  in  kind  than  itself.  If  spiritual  things  are  to 
be  attained,  there  must  be  a  vital  connection  with 
the  source  of  spiritual  energy.  This  is  what  baptism 
gives  us.  It  does  not  at  once  accomplish  everything, 
we  must  work  out  our  own  salvation;  but  it  gives  us 
the  new  principle,  the  impetus,  the  fresh  start. 

The  might  of  beginnings !  Evolution  has  made 
us  familiar  with  the  thought.  The  world  did  not 
come  full  grown  from  the  hand  of  the  Creator.  It 
began  in  embryo  and  has  since  developed  its  number- 
less forms  of  life.  What  a  wonderful  beginning  was 
that,  when  the  first  vital  spark  touched  that  cell  of 
matter  ages  ago  and  it  began  to  thrill  and  swell  with 
the  God-given  energy  then  imparted  to  it!  There 
was  the  origin  of  all  life,  the  grass  and  the  trees  and 
the  flowers,  the  birds  of  the  air,  the  fishes  of  the  sea, 
the  living  creatures  of  the  earth,  man  himself  with  all 
his  later  development.     Xo  step  has  ever  equalled  this 


THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT  157 

one,  from  a  dead  world  to  the  world  a  moment  after, 
palpitating  with  the  first  current  of  life.  Without 
that  vital  spark  from  God  all  the  rest  could  never 
have  been. 

When  creation  had  reached  its  climax  in  man, 
there  was  another  beginning.  God  breathed  into  man 
'the  breath  of  life,  and  he  became  a  living  soul,  differ- 
entiated from  the  rest  of  creation  by  the  fact  that  he 
had  a  spiritual  nature,  a  life  moulded  after  the  image 
of  God.  It  was  only  a  beginning,  yet  how  wonderful 
the  step,  how  great  the  advance  from  brute  to  man ! 

Now  that  man  has  sinned  and  must  be  brought 
back  to  God,  there  is  another  creation,  a  new  begin- 
ning once  more.  The  old  nature  is  not  to  be  patched 
up  and  made  over,  a  new  one  must  come  into  being. 
There  must  be  planted  the  germ  of  a  higher  life,  a 
seed  left  indeed  to  develop,  yet  without  which  there 
can  be  no  advancement.  Only  a  new  beginning,  but 
think  of  the  might  of  it!  The  impetus  has  been 
given.  The  wonder  of  that  new  birth  is  greater  than 
all  the  growth  that  must  yet  come  before  we  have 
attained  to  the  beauty  of  holiness.  Whatever  the 
future  may  bring  forth,  it  is  this  new  life  principle 
which  is  the  important  thing.  With  that  all  the  rest 
is  possible,  all  is  there  in  embryo;  without  it  nothing 
can  be  accomplished. 

The  wonder  of  baptism,  then,  is  that  it  is  a  new 
point  of  departure,  a  regeneration,  a  second  birth. 
As  such,  it  includes  pardon,  the  wiping  out  of  the 


158  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

past;  grace,  the  seed  of  the  new  life;  light,  the  illu- 
mination of  the  soul  for  its  progress  in  holiness. 

(1)  Forgiveness — the  cleansing  from  the  burden 
of  sin. 

Baptism  is  the  means  by  which  our  Lord  seals 
to  us  His  pardon.  When  we  turn  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment we  find  it  full  of  the  promise  of  remission  of 
sins  through  this  sacrament.  St.  Peter  tells  the 
multitude  who  had  been  convinced  by  his  preaching 
to  "repent  and  be  baptized  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ,  for  the  remission  of  sins"  (Acts  ii.  38). 
Ananias  brings  the  command  to  the  penitent  Saul, 
"Arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away  thy  sins" 
(Acts  xxii.  16).  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  Christ 
cleanses  the  Church  by  "the  washing  of  water"  (Eph. 
V.  25-26).  He  reminds  the  Corinthians,  "But  ye 
have  been  washed,  ye  have  been  sanctified"  (I  Cor. 
vi.  11).  In  another  place  he  speaks  of  the  "washing 
[or  laver]  of  regeneration"  (Titus  iii.  5).  St.  Peter 
says  that  "even  baptism  doth  also  now  save  us"  (I 
St.  Peter  iii.  21).  In  all  these  texts  we  have  as  it 
were  but  the  expansion  of  our  Lord's  own  words,  "He 
that  belie veth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved"  (St. 
Mark  xvi.  16).  "Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  na- 
tions, baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  (St.  Matthew 
xxviii.  19). 

Repentance  is  not  enough,  nor  conversion.  If  re- 
pentance is  full  and  sincere,  if  conversion  is  thorough, 
their  genuineness  will  be  manifested  in  a  simple- 
hearted,  childlike  reliance  on  our  Lord's  promise  and 


THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT  159 

we  shall  come  to  receive  pardon  in  His  way.  So  St. 
Paul,  stricken  to  the  earth  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
deeply  penitent,  thoroughly  converted,  is  not  yet  par- 
doned. "Arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away  thy 
sins,"  is  the  message  Ananias  brings  him  and  he  at 
once  obeys. 

In  the  second  Book  of  the  Kings  there  is  a  story 
full  of  dramatic  interest  and  rich  in  its  display  of 
human  nature.  Naaman,  captain  of  the  army  of  the 
king  of  Syria,  was  a  great  soldier  who  stood  high  in 
the  esteem  of  his  sovereign.  With  all  his  riches  and 
honors,  however,  his  life  was  blasted;  he  was  a  leper. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  go  over  the  story  in  detail.  We 
take  it  up  at  the  point  where  Naaman  stands  at  the 
door  of  the  prophet  of  Israel,  to  whom  he  has  been 
sent  to  be  healed.  "And  Elisha  sent  a  messenger 
unto  him,  saying,  Go  and  wash  in  Jordan  seven  times, 
and  thy  flesh  shall  come  again  to  thee,  and  thou  shah 
be  clean.  But  Naaman  was  wroth,  and  went  away, 
and  said.  Behold,  I  thought.  He  will  surely  come  out 
to  me,  and  stand,  and  call  on  the  name  of  the  Lord  his 
God,  and  strike  his  hand  over  the  place,  and  recover 
the  leper.  Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers  of 
Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of  Israel?  may 
I  not  wash  in  them,  and  be  clean  ?  So  he  turned  and 
went  away  in  a  rage.  And  his  servants  came  near, 
and  spake  unto  him,  and  said,  My  father,  if  the 
prophet  had  bid  thee  do  some  great  thing,  wouldest 
thou  not  have  done  it  ?  how  much  rather  then,  when 
he  saith  to  thee,  Wash,  and  be  clean  ?  Then  went  he 
down,   and   dipped  himself   seven   times  in  Jordan, 


160  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

according  to  the  saying  of  the  man  of  God:  and  his 
flesh  came  again  like  unto  the  flesh  of  a  little  child, 
and  he  was  clean." 

One  thing  is  very  plain  in  the  story.  Naaman's 
cure  was  wrought  by  the  power  of  God.  There  was 
no  healing  virtue  in  the  water  of  the  Jordan.  God 
simply  used  it  as  the  outward  and  visible  means  of 
conveying  a  healing  strength  from  Himself.  How- 
ever simple  and  absurd  the  remedy  might  seem, 
Naaman  must  accept  the  cure  in  God's  way  and 
through  the  means  which  God  had  appointed.  His 
acceptance  of  the  means  is  the  test  of  his  earnestness 
and  faith. 

The  story  recites  very  simply  by  anticipation  God's 
method  of  cleansing  us  from  sin  in  baptism.  If 
someone  objects  that  what  Jesus  Christ  wants  is  that 
we  should  believe  on  Him  and  give  Him  our  hearts, 
we  ask,  How  shall  we  show  our  belief  except  by  sub- 
mitting to  the  ordinance  which  He  commanded  as  the 
means  of  our  moral  cure?  It  seems  a  very  simple 
thing,  this  baptizing  with  water  in  the  Triune  Name ; 
but  to  submit  to  it  is  to  show  our  obedience,  our  faith, 
our  earnestness. 

The  first  effect  of  baptism,  then,  is  remission  of 
sins — not  merely  justification  in  the  sense  of  acquittal, 
but  a  gift  of  absolution  carrying  with  it  the  power  to 
loose  from  evil  and  gird  up  the  forces  of  the  soul 
against  the  weakness  of  sin. 

Sin,  however,  is  not  annihilated  by  the  grace  of 
baptism.  It  only  receives  its  first  blow,  an  assault 
that  will  eventually  lead  to  its  destruction.  The  sacra- 


THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT  161 

mental  grace  does  not  pluck  up  the  roots  of  sin,  it 
gradually  kills  them.  There  still  remains,  even  in 
the  baptized,  the  "infection  of  nature",  so  that  the 
lust  of  the  flesh  continues  to  be  felt.  In  spite  of  the 
glory  attached  to  the  baptized,  they  still  "offend  in 
many  things"  (St.  James  iii.  2)  ;  they  must  still  "keep 
under  the  body  and  bring  it  into  subjection"  (1  Cor. 
ix.  27)  ;  they  must  be  on  their  guard  to  "abstain  from 
fleshly  lusts"  (I  St.  Peter  ii.  11).  Although  their 
"fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  with  His  Son 
Jesus  Christ",  there  must  still  be  a  struggle  against 
evil  within  them,  for  sin  is  still  there.  "If  we  say 
that  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and  the 
truth  is  not  in  us"  (I  St.  John  i.  8). 

(2)  Regeneration. 

Forgiveness  is  not  all  that  is  needed,  there  mlist 
be  an  entire  renewal  of  the  spirit.  We  must  be  re- 
born. We  have  only  to  look  about  us,  in  order  to  be 
convinced  of  that.  No  one  who  has  ever  contem- 
plated the  work  that  lies  before  those  who  would  help 
and  uplift  their  fellows  can  doubt  it.  Conscious  of 
our  own  spiritual  poverty,  of  our  weakness  of  will  and 
faintness  of  heart,  of  the  moral  evil  that  still  lies  un- 
conquered  within  us,  we  see  in  others  the  same  terrible 
sin  and  depravity.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  a  mul- 
titude of  other  souls  are  ushered  into  the  world  every 
day  with  the  same  dreadful  heritage,  children  of  the 
thief,  the  drunkard,  the  sensually  debased,  poor,  de- 
generate, stunted  souls,  born  with  a  burden  of  disease 
in  the  spirit  that  is  worse  than  the  inheritance  of 
physical  ill  which  often  presses  upon  them. 


162  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

What  can  possibly  effect,  with  such,  a  permanent 
moral  change?  Education,  culture,  the  force  of  ex- 
ample, the  power  of  love,  will  do  something,  but  it 
does  seem  that  there  must  be  a  remedy  going  deeper 
still.  The  glory  of  the  Christian  Church  is  that  she 
has  that  remedy.  She  has  never  lost  hope,  because 
she  believes  that  all  men  can  be  given  a  new  nature, 
that  the  old  self  can  be  thoroughly  renewed  through 
the  application  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself. 

In  baptism,  then,  there  is  not  only  a  death  unto 
sin  but  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness — an  upward 
life  of  the  soul  which  begins  the  moment  it  is  incor- 
porated into  Christ.  This  much  our  Lord  implies 
when  He  says,  in  a  passage  which  all  the  Church 
fathers  explain  as  referring  to  baptism,  "Except  a 
man  be  born  of  water  and  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God"  (St.  John  iii.  5).  The 
epistles  confirm  this  interpretation  of  our  Lord's 
words.  St.  Paul  speaks  of  our  being  "saved  by  the 
washing  of  regeneration"  (Titus  iii.  5)  ;  he  says  that 
"as  many  as  have  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put 
on  Christ"  (Gal.  iii.  27)  ;  that  "we  have  been  buried 
with  Him  in  baptism,  wherein  also  we  are  risen  with 
Him,  through  the  faith  of  the  operation  of  God" 
(Col.  ii.  12)  ;  that  "we  are  buried  with  Him  by 
baptism  into  death,  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up 
from  the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we 
also  should  walk  in  newness  of  life"  (Romans  vi.  4). 

Yet  it  must  be  remembered  again  that  this  new 
birth  is  only  a  beginning,  a  mighty  beginning  it  is 
true,  but  only  a  start  after  all,  and  all  that  follows 


THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT  163 

must  depend  upon  our  use  of  the  grace  given.  The 
baptized  person  is  said  to  be  born  again,  because  he 
has  been  incorporated  into  Christ  by  the  life-giving 
Spirit;  yet  through  his  neglect  the  life  of  the  Spirit 
may  never  grow  in  him.  Eegeneration  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  effect  which  comes  over  a  seed  when  it 
has  been  placed  in  nourishing  soil.  Before  it  was 
placed  there  the  seed  had  life,  but  it  was  practically 
dead  until  it  had  received  the  beneficial  effects  of  that 
transplanting.  Again,  as  in  the  seed  death  takes 
place  as  well  as  life,  so  regeneration  is  a  death  unto 
sin  and  then  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness.  Finally, 
as  the  birth  of  the  seed  must  be  followed  by  its  growth 
and  to  that  end  it  must  have  sunlight,  moisture,  and 
nourishment,  so  must  regeneration,  with  the  baptized, 
be  followed  by  nurture  in  the  Lord.  \Ye  must  not 
only  be  born  again,  we  must  grow  in  the  new  life ;  yet 
the  growth  can  come  only  because  of  the  vitality  re- 
ceived at  birth.  The  Church,  when  she  baptizes, 
prays  that  "the  old  Adam  may  be  so  hurled  that  the 
new  man  may  be  raised  up",  that  "sinful  affections 
may  die",  and  "all  things  belonging  to  the  Spirit  may 
live  and  grow". 

The  fact  that  baptized  persons  sometimes  never 
consecrate  themselves  to  God  is  no  evidence  against 
the  reality  of  the  baptismal  grace.  It  but  shows  that 
the  gift  is  not  unconditional;  the  grace  appears  in 
power  and  activity  only  on  certain  conditions.  Only 
the  foundation  of  salvation  is  laid;  we  must  build  up 
on  that  by  our  personal  faith.  (See  I  St.  Peter  iii. 
21.)     One  great  argument  for  infant  baptism  is  that 


164  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

children  cannot  erect  such  barriers  against  the  recep- 
tion of  grace  as  adults  and  therefore  if  the  seed  can 
be  planted  within  them  and  through  the  care  and 
attention  of  parents  and  sponsors  given  the  chance  of 
growth  in  early  life,  the  little  ones  who  have  received 
this  blessing  are  the  less  likely  to  fall  into  grievous 
sin  and  the  more  readily  recovered  if  they  do. 
"Adults  may  hinder  or  prevent  the  operation  of  grace 
by  ignorance,  by  indifference,  by  want  of  due  prepara- 
tion; to  their  own  part  must  they  look,  to  their  duty 
must  they  be  urged  by  their  spiritual  guides;  but 
the  lot  of  the  children  is  happier,  and  of  such  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  ^ 

(3)   Illumination. 

By  this,  power  is  given  to  the  spiritual  faculties, 
enabling  them  to  discern  spiritual  things.  We  re- 
ceive the  Spirit,  that  we  may  know  the  things  freely 
given  us  of  God.  We  have  the  eyes  of  our  under- 
standing enlightened,  that  we  may  see  and  know  the 
truth.  Yet  this  spiritual  vision  is  not  perfected  all 
at  once.  Like  the  blind  man  who  was  healed  by  our 
Lord  and  beheld  men  as  trees  walking,  at  first  we 
do  not  see  spiritual  things  in  exact  proportion; 
gradually  the  vision  becomes  more  clear,  and  we  see 
plainly. 

From  every  aspect,  then,  baptism  is  the  begin- 
ning  of  God's  work  with  the  soul.  He  works  by 
evolution  here,  as  He  works  in  nature.  God  begins 
the  new  creation;  man  must  carry  it  on  in  its  later 


Dix:  The  Sacramental  System. 


THE  BAPTISMAL  GIFT  165 

development.  His  the  original  gift;  ours  the  priv- 
ilege and  responsibility  of  using  it.  His  the  planting 
of  the  seed;  ours  the  work  of  tending  and  watering 
it,  until  it  bursts  into  bloom  and  brings  forth  fruit  to 
perfection. 


166  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XVIII. 
INFANT  BAPTISM 

SHOW  me  one  sentence  in  the  Bible  which  clearly 
and  definitely  enjoins  the  baptism  of  infants, 
and  I  will  at  once  withdraw  all  opposition  to  the  cus- 
tom. But  you  cannot  do  this ;  you  cannot  point  to  a 
single  passage  as  proof  of  your  position.  Some  such 
challenge  as  this  used  to  be  made  frequently  by  Bap- 
tists. The  world  changes.  In  these  days  too  many 
people  are  absolutely  indifferent  about  baptism,  infant 
or  adult,  to  make  such  a  challenge.  The  whole  sub- 
ject, does  it  not,  resolves  itself  into  a  question  of  reve- 
lation. Have  we  a  divinely  revealed  religion  or  have 
we  not?  Once  the  authority  of  Scripture  is  recog- 
nized, as  an  actual  unveiling  of  God's  mind  and 
purpose  in  redemption,  there  can  be  no  question  as 
to  the  importance  of  baptism.  It  will  be  the  purpose 
of  this  chapter  to  show  that  scriptural  authority  for 
infant  baptism  is  just  as  clear. 

A  fundamental  error  in  his  conception  of  the 
Bible  is  revealed  in  the  challenge  of  our  Baptist 
friend.  In  a  later  chapter  it  will  be  pointed  out  that 
the  New  Testament  was  not  written  to  give  men 


INFANT   BAPTISM  167 

their  first  knowledge  of  the  principles  and  practices 
of  Christianity.  It  was  written  for  those  who  had 
already  been  instructed  in  the  faith  and  had  no  need 
therefore  of  plain  injunctions  about  fundamentals 
which  were  everywhere  received.  The  Bible  is  not 
a  book  which  is  intended  to  give  people  their  first 
ideas  about  the  Christian  religion.  "All  that  people 
need  to  be  taught  first  is  assumed  as  already  known, 
all,  for  example,  that  is  contained  in  our  Creed  and 
Catechism.  This  is  not  taught,  but  referred  to.  The 
books  of  the  New  Testament  were  intended  to  remind 
men  of  what  they  already  knew,  to  recall  it  to  their 
minds,  and  to  build  them  up  in  further  knowledge 
of  it."  ^  One  has  only  to  glance  at  such  texts  as  St. 
Luke  i.  4;  I  Cor.  xi.  2,  23 ;  xv.  1-4;  II  St.  Peter  i.  12, 
and  many  others,  to  see  plainly  that  this  is  so. 

There  are  many  things,  therefore  —  and  often 
things  of  the  first  importance — which  we  shall  not 
find  directly  and  explicitly  stated  in  the  Bible.  The 
very  things  which  were  universally  accepted  and  every- 
where practised,  which  nobody  denied  or  misunder- 
stood and  about  which  there  was  no  dispute,  would  be 
the  things  the  Scripture  writers  would  not  find  them- 
selves often  called  upon  to  mention.  We  must  turn 
to  Christian  tradition  to  learn  that  the  early  Church 
practised  these  things.  We  shall  expect  only  inci- 
dental references  to  them  in  Scripture,  references 
that  would  not  be  satisfactory  by  themselves  but  are 
perfectly  plain  when  read  in  the  light  of  the  Church's 
tradition. 


Gore:  The  Greed  of  the  Christian. 


168  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

To  take  an  instance :  there  is  no  injunction  in  the 
New  Testament  to  keep  Sunday  instead  of  the  Sab- 
bath, yet  we  find  incidental  references  that  prove  the 
practice  most  conclusively;  as,  when  we  read  that 
such  and  such  a  thing  happened  when  the  disciples 
were  met  together  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  to 
break  bread — a  proof  not  only  that  the  first  day  was 
kept,  but  an  indication  as  to  how  it  was  observed, 
namely,  by  the  celebration  of  the  Holy  Communion. 
Again,  admitting  the  change  from  the  Sabbath,  there 
is  no  direct  commandment  that  Sunday  shall  be  kept 
by  common  public  worship ;  all  Christians  knew  that 
it  should  be  so  observed,  and  the  practice  was  so  gen- 
eral that  only  when  some  began  to  neglect  it  do  we 
see  any  reference  to  the  subject.  Even  then  the  inci- 
dental reference  is  stronger  than  a  direct  injunction, 
as  when  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  says : 
"Forsake  not  the  assembling  of  yourselves  together, 
as  the  manner  of  some  is.^' 

So  it  is  with  infant  baptism.  A  study  of  Chris- 
tian tradition  shows  that  it  has  always  been  practised 
in  the  Church;  there  never  was  a  time,  in  the  early 
days,  when  anybody  dreamed  of  denying  it.  Under 
the  old  covenant  infants  had  been  admitted  by  cir- 
cumcision to  Church  membership  and  naturally  they 
were  admitted  under  the  new.  There  is  no  direct 
command  about  it  in  the  New  Testament  writings, 
because  it  is  assumed  as  already  known  and  practised. 
It  is  both  taken  for  granted  and  commanded  in  the 
New  Testament  that  all  persons  are  to  be  bap- 
tized, and  unless  one  can  produce  a  definite  command 


INFANT  BAPTISM  169 

excluding  infants  from  the  rite  it  must  be  concluded 
that  we  should  permit  them  to  be  partakers  of  it. 

Now  what  do  we  find  in  Holy  Scripture  ?  (i)  Our 
Lord,  having  shown  His  good  will  toward  children 
(St.  Mark  x.  14),  gave  commandment  to  go  and 
make  disciples  of  all  nations,  baptizing  them  (St. 
Matthew  xxviii.  19).  (u)  In  the  first  Christian  ser- 
mon St.  Peter  says :  "Kepent  and  be  baptized,  for  the 
promise  is  to  you  and  to  your  children"  (Acts  ii. 
38-39).  (Hi)  There  is  record  of  the  baptism  of  three 
entire  households  (Acts  xvi.  15,  33;  I.  Cor.  i.  16). 
(iv)  In  the  epistles,  addressed  to  baptized  persons, 
children  are  exhorted,  as  well  as  adults  (Ephesians 
vi.  1 ;  Colossians  iii.  20 )  as  being  Church  members. 

Considering,  therefore,  the  custom  of  the  Jewish 
Church,  and  adding  to  that  the  universal  interpreta- 
tion of  the  matter  by  the  Christian  Church,  for  fifteen 
centuries,  those  who  deny  infant  baptism  should  show : 
(i)  That  Christ  meant  to  exclude  children;  (ii)  that 
St.  Peter  meant  the  same;  (Hi)  that  there  were  no 
children  in  the  three  households,  where  all  were  bap- 
.tized;  (iv)  that  the  children  addressed  as  Christians 
in  St.  Paul's  epistles  were  not  really  baptized. 

The  truth  is,  the  denial  of  infant  baptism  arises 
from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  sacrament  itself. 
People  confound  conversion  and  regeneration,  and 
because  they  make  conversion  the  only  absolutely 
necessary  thing  and  baptism  a  mere  symbolic  rite 
through  which  one  professes  that  he  has  been  con- 
verted, infants   (as  not  having  passed  through  this 


170  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

experience)  are  denied  the  sacrament.  The  Church, 
however,  has  always  taught  that  baptism  is  a  new 
birth,  that  in  it  we  are  given  the  germ  of  a  higher  life, 
and  that  while  with  adults  there  must  be  a  real  turn- 
ing to  God  to  make  this  grace  effectual,  infants,  as  not 
being  able  to  oppose  any  obstacle  to  the  grace,  may 
receive  it  and  will  find  as  years  go  on  that  it  helps 
in  that  gradual  turning  of  the  soul  to  God  which  is 
just  as  true  a  conversion  as  is  any  sudden  and  violent 
change  of  heart  in  one  who  has  been  aroused  from 
a  life  of  deliberate  sin  against  Him. 

In  other  words,  we  must  grasp  the  fact  shown  in 
the  last  chapter,  that  baptism  is  two  things :  (t)  the 
sacramental  means  by  which  sin  is  washed  away ;  and 
(m)  a  new  birth  into  a  life  of  grace.  Having  that 
clear  in  our  minds,  we  shall  see  that  the  infant  needs 
both  these  blessings :  (i)  It  is  born  subject  to  sin  and 
should  therefore  have  this  sinful  inheritance  washed 
away;  (w)  it  needs,  too,  the  new  birth,  the  being 
"buried  with  Christ",  the  transplanting  into  a  new 
soil  where  spiritual  graces  may  grow  and  spiritual 
fruit  be  ripened.  We  all  inherit  from  our  first  fore- 
father Adam  a  weakened  and  tainted  nature;  we  are 
to  receive  from  our  Lord,  the  second  Adam,  the  rem- 
edy for  this  evil.  As  we  received  our  first  birth  and 
its  attendant  evils  in  an  unconscious  state,  there 
would  seem  to  be  nothing  unreasonable  in  our  recep- 
tion of  the  second  birth  and  its  attendant  blessings 
while  in  the  same  unconscious,  infantile  condition.* 

^  See  Sadler :  Church  Doctrine  Bible  Truth.  As  to  our 
fallen  nature,  see  chapter  nine  of  this  book. 


INFANT   BAPTISM  171 

Two  points  need  yet  to  be  emphasized,  before  we 
close,  as  touching  the  arguments  of  those  who  reject 
this  doctrine.  The  first  objection  is  that  it  is  out- 
rageous to  our  moral  perceptions  to  ask  us  to  believe 
that  unbaptized  infants  are  lost.  The  second  is  that 
it  makes  too  great  a  demand  upon  our  intelligence  to 
believe  that  an  unconscious  child  can  receive  a  spir- 
itual gift  or  blessing,  since  moral  strength  comes  as  a 
response  to  moral  effort. 

As  to  the  first  objection :  The  point  is  not  that  all 
infants  are  lost  who  have  not  been  baptized.  The 
Church  has  never  pronounced  on  that  question.  Vari- 
ous opinions  have  been  held  as  to  the  spiritual 
condition  of  children  dying  unbaptized ;  according  to 
none,  however,  is  it  now  held  that  such  children  are 
lost  in  the  sense  of  eternal  condemnation.  Some 
years  ago  the  Rev.  James  Richmond,  a  brilliant  but 
eccentric  priest  of  the  American  Church,  was  holding 
services  in  a  new  town  in  the  far  west.  As  usual  a 
large  proportion  of  the  children  in  the  new  settlement 
were  unbaptized  and  Mr.  Richmond  was  preaching 
about  the  necessity  of  the  sacrament.  Suddenly  he 
paused  in  his  sermon  and  said:  "I  am  sometimes 
asked  what  will  become  of  the  children  who  die  unbap- 
tized. Standing  in  this  pulpit  and  clothed  with  the 
Church's  authority,  I  am  not  permitted  to  pronounce 
any  judgment  on  the  subject,  because  it  is  a  mystery 
on  which  the  Church  has  never  been  guided  to  speak. 
But" — and  here  he  threw  off  his  surplice  and  stole, 
left  the  pulpit  and  walked  down  into  the  middle  of  the 
church — "But,"  he  continued,  "I  can  now  speak  as 


172  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

plain  James  Richmond  alone,  and  I  will  give  you  my 
answer.  Will  unbaptized  children  be  saved?  Yes, 
I  believe  they  will.  My  gravest  doubts  are  about 
the  parents  who  kept  them  from  the  sacrament." 

On  the  ground  of  probability  alone  (and  in  other 
matters  probability  is  a  guide  in  life)  a  careful  and 
conscientious  parent  will  desire  to  bring  his  children 
to  baptism.  If  in  that  sacrament  there  is  promised 
a  gift  of  new  life,  though  he  may  not  himself  see  the 
reasonableness  of  the  promise,  he  will  not  wish  to 
take  any  chances ;  he  will  gladly  give  his  children  the 
^^Denefit  of  the  doubt".  As  plain  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, for  one  case  where  parents  withhold  their  little 
ones  from  baptism  because  of  conscientious  objections 
to  the  practice,  there  are  dozens  where  the  neglect 
of  the  sacrament  is  purely  a  matter  of  religious 
indolence  and  negligence.  With  such  parents,  Mr. 
Richmond's  language  is  none  too  strong. 

As  to  the  second  objection,  we  reply:  The  fact 
that  children  are  capable  of  receiving  the  grace  of 
baptism  seems  clearly  evident  from  our  Lord's  words 
to  the  disciples  who  rebuked  those  who  brought  little 
children  to  Him  that  He  should  touch  them.  If 
children  could  receive  a  blessing  from  Him  when  He 
was  on  earth,  who  shall  deny  that  they  can  receive  it 
now?  In  three  of  the  Gospels  we  have  instances  of 
children  thus  brought  to  Christ,  that  by  His  "touch- 
ing" or  "laying  His  hands  on  them"  they  might 
receive  a  spiritual  blessing.  What  makes  the  analogy 
to  baptism  peculiarly  significant  is  that  this  blessing 
was  to  be  received  through  an  outward  symbol  or 


INFANT  BAPTISM  173 

sign.  Our  Lord  was  indignant  when  the  disciples 
would  have  sent  the  little  ones  away.  He  insisted  on 
receiving  and  blessing  them,  though  they  were  uncon- 
scious of  the  significance  of  what  was  being  done  for 
them.  What  right  have  we  to  think  that  His  indig- 
nation is  not  aroused  at  the  lack  of  faith  in  those  who 
would  keep  back  children  from  Him  in  these  days? 
In  baptism  He  touches  the  little  ones,  and  His  touch 
stirs  in  them  a  new  life:  who  shall  refuse  them  this 
great  gift,  because  they  must  receive  it  unconsciously, 
seeing  that  their  natural  life  was  given  them  in  the 
same  state? 

One  thought  more,  and  we  close  this  chapter :  If 
life  is  given,  it  must  also  be  sustained.  Baptism  is 
a  new  birth.  After  birth  there  must  be  provision  for 
the  maintenance  of  life.  This  is  just  what  the  Church 
does  in  requiring  that  there  be  sponsors  for  the  child 
who  is  to  be  baptized.  Eegeneration  has  just  been 
compared  to  the  transplanting  of  a  seed  from  soil  in 
which  it  could  not  take  nourishment  to  another  in 
which  it  may  bear  fruit.  But  as  light,  heat,  and 
air  are  necessary  for  the  growth  and  formation  of  the 
seed  life,  so  the  light  of  God  in  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  the  warmth  of  the  Church  in  the  fellowship 
of  the  saints,  the  divine  atmosphere  taken  in  and 
breathed  out  by  prayer,  are  necessary  for  the  growth 
of  the  soul,  and  the  Church  requires  certain  guaran- 
tees that  these  will  be  provided.  That  guarantee  is 
given  in  the  solemn  pledge  of  the  sponsors,  who  are 
provided  as  sureties  to  see  that  as  children  grow  to 


174  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

years  of  discretion  they  shall  know  the  meaning  of 
their  religion  and  the  seriousness  of  their  responsi- 
bility. Of  course,  the  parents  may  act  if  god-parents 
cannot  possibly  be  had  but  this  ought  never  to  be 
done  except  in  case  of  absolute  necessity.  The  parents 
are  the  child^s  sponsors  by  nature.  There  could  be 
little  reason  in  their  formally  taking  the  responsibility 
upon  themselves  at  the  baptismal  service,  inasmuch 
as  the  responsibility  is  theirs  already.  Their  spiritual 
duties  as  the  parents  by  nature  are  exactly  what  they 
would  be  taking  upon  themselves  as  parents  by  grace, 
god-parents.  Where  they  may  be  had,  therefore,  other 
sponsors  are  required,  so  that  should  the  parents  die 
or  fail  in  their  duty  someone  may  be  under  obligation 
to  look  after  the  religious  well-being  of  the  child 
and  see  to  its  proper  training  in  the  life  of  the  Church. 
It  may  be  questioned  whether  baptism  should  ever  be 
administered  without  the  assurance  that  the  grace 
given  will  not  be  neglected.  Far  better  that  the  child 
should  be  left  to  God's  "uncovenanted  mercies" — that 
is.  His  mercies  of  which  we  are  reasonably  sure, 
though  they  are  not  set  forth  as  promises  or  covenants. 
Sacramental  grace  never  does  away  with  indi- 
vidual responsibility.  We  must  see  that  children 
receive  the  grace  which  is  promised  to  all  who  are 
admitted  into  the  Church  by  baptism;  but  we  are 
under  an  equal  obligation  to  see  that  they  are  taught 
to  appropriate  and  use  the  grace  for  the  up-building 
of  their  Christian  life.  Neither  baptism  nor  any 
other  sacrament  is  a  magical  charm  working  apart 
from  human  effort. 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  SACRIFICE  175 


XIX. 
THE  EUCHARISTIC  SACRIFICE 

RELIGIOUS  workers  in  army  camps  learned 
something  about  worship,  if  they  had  open 
minds.  They  discovered  that  there  was  just  one 
service  which  had  wonderful  popularity  with  the  men, 
wonderful  power  and  impressiveness.  Chaplains  of 
almost  every  religious  name  have  testified  to  the  fact. 
Letters  from  camp  and  from  the  front  told  of  gather- 
ings where  men  have  been  hushed  into  deepest  rever- 
ence. The  services  which  they  describe — ^now  for  a 
few  gathered  at  an  early  hour  in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut; 
now  for  many  hundreds  at  a  midnight  service  Christ- 
mas eve;  now  for  men  with  serious  faces  and  solemn 
thoughts  just  before  going  "over  the  top" — are  not 
"services  of  song"  or  "prayer  meetings  with  pep  in 
them"  or  "camouflaged  preaching"  under  the  guise  of 
a  motion  picture  entertainment  or  "intoned  matins 
with  a  sung  Te  Deum'\  The  service  which  always 
grips  men's  souls  is  the  Lord's  own  service,  the  Holy 
Communion.  Whether  it  were  a  quiet  communion 
for  a  few  wounded  men,  or  a  mass  for  the  dead  back 
of  the  Flanders  battle  line,  or  a  night  service  near  the 


176  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

trenches,  or  a  more  formal  celebration  in  one  of  the 
churches  that  had  escaped  utter  ruin,  the  one  service 
that  always  went  straight  to  the  heart  was  the  service 
which  commemorates  the  world's  great  sacrifice,  the 
Calvary  tragedy  that  ended  in  the  Easter  triumph. 
The  men  always  showed  that  they  loved  it.  They 
cannot  tell  why,  but  love  it  they  do.  And  there  is  so 
much  in  the  service  it  is  small  wonder  they  cannot 
explain  why  it  stirs  them.  They  "sense"  its  power 
without  knowing  how  or  why. 

The  pity  of  it  is  that  so  many  of  them  had  to  go 
through  the  horror  of  war  before  they  could  discover 
what  worship  is,  how  real  its  comfort  and  its  strength. 
The  pity  is,  again,  that  the  Churches  have  failed  to 
tell  much  of  the  meaning  of  the  Lord's  own  service  or 
to  put  it  in  its  rightful  place  in  public  worship.  Even 
the  Eoman  Catholics,  who  have  at  least  done  this 
much,  have  smothered  the  service  under  a  mass  of 
puerile  ceremonies,  surrounded  it  with  tawdriness  and 
by  rendering  it  in  an  unknown  tongue  detracted  from 
its  human  helpfulness.  The  pity,  still  more,  is  that 
multitudes  of  people,  when  they  have  had  any  teach- 
ing whatever  about  the  great  service  of  the  Christian 
Church,  have  had  only  controversial  teaching.  The 
Churches  have  been  so  busy  explaining  what  it  is  not 
that  they  have  forgotten  to  show  what  it  is. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  tragedies  of  Christian  history 
that  the  Holy  Eucharist  ever  became  the  subject 
of  so  much  theological  dispute.  That  this  which  was 
given  by  our  Lord  as  a  "blest  sacrament  of  unity" 
should  be  made  a  centre  of  strife  and  discord  is  one 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  SACRIFICE  177 

of  the  saddest  sights  of  our  disunited  Christendom. 
Perhaps  if  we  were  satisfied  to  think  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Eucharist  rather  in  its  broad  general  prin- 
ciples, the  very  simplicity  of  such  a  consideration 
would  make  the  beauty  and  reasonableness  of  the 
truth  so  apparent  that  there  would  be  less  room  for 
disagreement.  It  is  not,  therefore,  the  purpose  of 
this  and  the  following  chapters  to  study  the  subject 
much  in  detail;  we  are  rather  to  look  at  it  in  this 
simpler  way,  in  the  hope  of  stating  the  primitive 
teaching  in  modern  language  with  as  little  reference 
as  possible  to  the  opposing  theories  of  the  different 
schools. 

Even  though  we  try  to  empty  the  sacrament  of  all 
mystery,  it  is  yet  the  dying  request  of  a  loving  Friend. 
Jesus  Christ  was  so  thoroughly  human.  He  had  all 
our.  human  longing  not  to  be  forgotten.  While,  of 
course.  He  desired  to  be  remembered  for  our  sakes, 
not  for  His  own.  He  did  ask  to  be  remembered.  If 
the  Holy  Communion  were  nothing  more  than  this, 
we  should  at  leart  be  obedient  to  the  Lord's  last  re- 
quest. What  kind  of  a  son  is  he  who  would  forget  the 
last  expressed  wish  of  his  mother?  What  kind  of  a 
friend  is  he  who  forgets  his  friend's  dying  desire  ?  ^ 

But  the  sacrament  is  much  more  than  this  and  the 
Church  has  always  felt  it  to  be  much  more,  however 
men  have  differed  in  their  interpretation  of  its  larger 
meaning.  One  much-forgotten  aspect  of  the  service 
it  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  explain.     To 


See  my  Back  to  Christ,  chapter  iv. 


178  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

many  Christians  it  is  a  sacrificial  service.  How,  then, 
can  it  be  so  regarded  ?  What  do  we  mean  by  eucha- 
ristic  sacrifice  ?  In  order  to  explain  we  must  go  back 
to  first  principles. 

The  element  of  sacrifice  is  absolutely  essential  to 
the  spirit  of  worship.  Just  as  we  endeavor  to  show 
our  love  for  parents  or  brethren  or  friends  by  giving 
them  something,  by  gladly  putting  ourselves  to  little 
inconveniences  for  their  sakes,  by  surrendering  cher- 
ished desires  and  possessions  to  show  them  our  inter- 
ested and  thoughtful  affection — so  we  try  to  express 
our  love  for  God  by  giving  Him  of  our  substance  or 
our  time,  by  bending  our  wills  to  His  desires  and 
cheerfully  devoting  ourselves,  body  and  soul,  to  all 
that  may  give  Him  glory  and  honor  among  men. 
This  leads  us  to  make  our  offerings  to  Him,  of  what- 
ever sort  they  may  be,  just  as  children  pluck  a  flower 
from  some  plant  in  the  garden,  something  they  them- 
selves have  cared  for  and  tended,  that  they  may  give 
it  to  some  loved  friend  or  relative. 

Such  is  the  principle  of  sacrifice  apart  from  sin. 
Through  the  fall,  however,  it  has  become  more  than 
this :  for  what  men  should  have  presented  in  glad  love 
and  full  communion  with  God,  they  must  bring  to 
Him  now  in  penitence  and  shame,  in  the  hope  of 
restoring  the  fellowship  they  have  lost  and  as  a  pro- 
pitiation for  the  offenses  which  have  broken  that 
fellowship.  In  all  nations  the  world  over,  therefore, 
we  find  this  new  instinct  of  sacrifice  as  a  means  of 
securing  the  renewed  favor  of  the  deity.     Corn  and 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  SACRIFICE  1 79 

wine  and  oil  and  fruits  and  flowers  are  offered  the 
offended  divinity ;  birds  and  beasts  are  slain  by  thou- 
sands and  burned,  that  the  odor  may  be  a  sweet  smell- 
ing savor  for  their  god;  human  victims,  even,  are 
hurried  to  the  altar,  that  their  death  may  be  the 
means  of  saving  others.  Horrible  as  the  heathen 
sacrifices  were,  they  witness  to  the  natural  religious 
instinct  of  the  race,  the  endeavor  of  men  to  atone 
for  sin  and  do  worthy,  sacrificing  service  for  their 
deities. 

When  God  selected  out  of  the  nations  a  people  for 
His  name.  He  responded  to  this  instinct  of  worship 
by  authorizing  a  most  elaborate  system  of  sacrifices. 
What  came  now,  not  in  gratitude  alone  but  as  man's 
acknowledgment  of  sin,  was  taken  by  God,  freed  of 
impurity,  and  used  by  Him  to  educate  His  people 
into  a  realization  of  the  awfulness  of  sin,  of  their 
just  separation  from  Him  who  is  all-holy,  and  of  the 
need  of  some  better  sacrifice  that  could  make  them 
unblamable  and  acceptable  in  His  sight.  This  was 
the  meaning  of  all  the  bloody  offerings  that  made  the 
Jewish  temple  almost  a  great  butchery.  It  was  all 
intended  to  make  men  feel  how  dreadful  sin  was  and 
how  much  they  needed  some  sacrifice  and  propitiation 
to  place  God  and  themselves  at  one  again. 

Then  when  the  need  was  felt,  and  felt  deeply, 
God  supplied  it.  The  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  could 
never  take  away  sin;  the  efficacy  of  these  sacrifices 
lay  in  their  union  with  what  was  yet  to  come;  their 
offering  was  continued  as  leading  up  to  and  prepar- 
ing men  to  receive  the  one  great  sacrifice.     God  was 


180  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

waiting  during  these  times  of  preparation  and  finally 
He  sent  His  only-begotten  Son  into  the  world  to  be 
the  real  propitiation  for  our  sins.  Christ,  by  His 
sacrifice  on  the  cross,  culminating  a  life  of  sacrifice 
and  obedience,  forever  redeemed  us  from  sin  and 
death  and  gained  for  us  the  gift  of  everlasting  life. 

It  is  worth  noting,  in  passing  (note  this  as  a 
very  important  parenthetical  paragraph),  that  as  our 
Lord's  sacrificial  death  must  be  accepted  by  us  in 
faith,  it  is  implied  that  we  cannot  plead  the  death  on 
our  behalf  unless  we  are  trying  to  correspond  to  the 
life.  Our  sacrifice  must  not  be  the  bare  offering  of 
another's  merit,  it  must  be  an  offering  of  ourselves, 
with  all  the  powers  of  soul  and  body,  in  union  with 
the  sacrifice  of  Calvary. 

To  resume  the  main  thought :  The  sacrifice  of  the 
cross,  while  it  was  one,  perfect,  and  sufficient,  did  not 
end  on  the  first  Good  Friday.  He  who  was  priest  and 
victim  passed  into  the  heavenly  courts  and  there  per- 
petually pleads  the  merits  of  His  earthly  life  and 
death,  offering  continually  His  blood  shed  for  sinners. 
The  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  explains 
this  heavenly  oblation,  by  its  ante-type,  the  entrance 
of  the  high  priest  into  the  holy  of  holies  on  the  Day 
of  Atonement.  As  the  Jewish  high  priest,  when  the 
victim  had  been  slain,  entered  within  the  veil  and 
offered  the  blood,  sprinkling  it  on  the  mercy  seat,  so 
Christ  entered  into  heaven  itself  now  to  appear  in 
the  presence  of  God  for  us  and  there  as  our  great 
High  Priest  to  plead  His  blood  as  of  a  lamb  without 
spot  or  blemish,  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  SACRIFICE  181 

of  the  world.  "Although  He  is  forever  seated  there, 
as  one  whose  toils  are  over,  yet  He  is  a  'priest  upon 
His  throne'  and  is  perpetually  engaged  in  presenting 
on  our  behalf  the  life  which  He  once  for  all  laid 
down,  and  has  taken  again,  and  never  needs  to  lay 
down  from  henceforth/' 

Now  at  last  we  have  reached  our  point  and  can 
see  how  the  Eucharist  has  sacrificial  meaning  and  its 
celebrant  a  priestly  character.  The  same  offering 
which  our  Lord  makes  in  heaven  is  pleaded  by  His 
priests  as  they  accomplish  His  service  on  earth. 
He  instituted  and  ordained  these  holy  mysteries  as 
pledges  of  His  love  and  for  a  continual  remembrance 
or  memorial  of  His  death.  Here  at  His  altar,  "we 
set  forth  His  death,  we  lift  it  up  on  high,  we  magnify 
it  as  our  only  boast,  our  chief  glory,  our  one  hope. 
And  in  so  doing  the  veil  between  heaven  and  earth 
is  lifted,  and  we  find  ourselves  one  with  Him  in 
that  ceaseless  presentation  of  Himself  for  us  in  the 
inexhaustible  virtue  of  His  past  suffering." ' 

There  have  been  endless  discussions  as  to  whether 
the  offering  of  the  Eucharist  is  to  be  connected  with 
the  heavenly  oblation,  or  with  the  immolation  of 
Calvary.  Possibly  the  truth  lies  in  the  union  of  both 
thoughts.  The  one  great  sacrifice  of  the  cross  is 
lifted  up  on  high  by  our  Lord  in  heaven  and  by 
means  of  that  sacrament  which  He  puts  in  our  hands 
we  plead  it  also  on  earth;  and  yet  as  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  cross  lay  in  the  obedience  even  unto  death, 


'  Mason :  The  Faith  of  the  Gospel. 


182  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

so  the  gifts  of  the  altar,  the  broken  bread  and  the 
outpoured  wine,  mystically  reproduce  the  dissolution 
of  soul  and  body  in  which  the  passion  of  our  Lord 
had  its  climax  and  close.  When  the  priest  at  the  altar 
breaks  the  consecrated  bread  and  offers  it,  he  lifts  up 
the  same  broken  body  that  hung  on  the  cross,  and 
re-presents  the  oblation  of  Calvary. 

The  Eucharist  is  a  sacrifice,  then — a  commem- 
orative and  representative  sacrifice,  but  a  sacrifice 
nevertheless,  in  which  there  is  a  real  offering.  As  tlie 
service  of  the  Day  of  Atonement  was  incomplete  if  it 
stopped  with  the  killing  of  the  victim  and  reached 
its  perfection  in  the  sprinkling  of  the  blood  and  the 
pleading  of  the  high  priest  within  the  veil,  so  Christ's 
sacrifice  must  be  pleaded  in  heaven  and  offered  for 
the  souls  of  men  on  earth.  Both  actions  are  essen- 
tially sacrificial  and  in  their  union  man  finds  his 
cravings  satisfied  and  his  restored  union  with  God 
made  possible. 

One  cannot  close  without  showing  the  practical 
value  of  this  thought.  The  Jewish  high  priest,  when 
he  went  in  unto  the  holy  place,  bore  the  names  of  the 
children  of  Israel  on  the  breast  plate  of  judgment  for 
a  memorial  before  the  Lord  continually.  And  our 
great  High  Priest,  the  Son  of  God,  now  gone  to  the 
presence  of  the  Father  to  offer  the  avails  of  His  sac- 
rifice, bears  on  His  heart  our  names,  too.  What  He 
does  in  heaven  He  enables  His  priests  to  do  here. 
Every  Eucharist  offered  at  His  altar  gives  opportunity 
for  special  remembrance,  so  that  by  offering  it  with 


THE  EUCH ARISTIC  SACRIFICE  1 83 

intention  the  merits  of  our  Lord's  atoning  death  may 
be  pleaded  for  each  of  ns  individually  and  as  petition 
after  petition  rises  to  the  throne  of  grace  each  pleads 
for  us  all  that  Christ  did  and  does,  each  becomes  a 
means  of  special  blessing. 

Are  we  using  our  altars  in  this  way,  as  we  should  ? 
Let  us  picture  the  ideal  of  what  a  church  should  be. 
Sunday  after  Sunday,  and  day  after  day,  as  its  doors 
are  opened,  we  see  our  people  coming  together,  eager 
to  enter  God's  house  and  to  kneel  before  His  altar. 
We  read  their  hearts  and  find  that  each  has  its  own 
trial,  or  trouble,  or  joy ;  we  know  that  each  is  coming 
to  spread  this  before  the  Lord.  Here  is  a  woman 
whose  son  is  careless,  thoughtless,  unbelieving.  Long 
ago  he  ceased  to  observe  his  religious  duties  and  the 
mother's  heart  is  pained  at  his  increasing  indifference. 
Here  is  a  man  whose  business  has  been  troubling  and 
pressing  him  for  months,  who  knows  not  where  to 
turn  as  the  difficulties  thicken  from  day  to  day.  Here 
are  others  in  whose  family  life  there  are  dark  shad- 
ows, the  curse  of  drink  or  the  evil  breath  of  immo- 
rality has  touched  some  one  of  the  members  of  the 
home  circle  and  the  others  are  heavy-hearted.  Or 
there  are  some  with  near  friends  or  relatives  danger- 
ously ill,  or  under  the  dark  shadow  of  sorrow,  or  in 
the  stress  of  some  personal  trouble,  battling  with 
doubt  or  struggling  with  temptation.  During  the 
years  of  war  how  many  anxious  or  sorrowing  hearts 
have  come  through  that  open  church  door!  Others 
are  here  as  full  of  joy  as  these  are  of  pain — thankful 
for  some  special  mark  of  God's  love  and  favor  and 


184  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

coming  with  light  hearts  and  glad  voices  to  join  in  the 
praises  of  the  Church. 

The  great  fact  which  the  Holy  Eucharist  brings 
home  to  us  is  that  in  their  sorrow  or  rejoicing  they 
are  not  alone.  The  priest  at  the  altar  has  not  been 
left  to  guess  at  their  needs  or  blessings.  They  have 
taken  him  into  their  confidence,  have  told,  him  the 
evil  and  the  good  together,  and  they  know  that  their 
names  are  on  his  lips  and  in  his  heart  as  with  uplifted 
hands  he  petitions  the  throne  of  grace.  Those  who 
are  in  sorrow  have  not  come  here  to  pray  alone,  as 
they  struggle  out  of  their  darkness  into  light — ^they 
can  pray  so  at  home.  They  have  come  to  plead  the 
merits  of  their  Redeemer,  to  be  present  at  the  lifting 
up  of  His  sacrifice;  they  have  asked  the  priest,  when 
He  makes  the  oblation,  to  offer  it  for  them,  with 
special  intention.  They  are  not  alone,  the  Eucharist 
has  been  made  theirs,  the  merits  of  Christ's  atoning 
death  have  been  pleaded  for  each  individually, 
and  together  with  the  intercessions  of  Christ  in 
heaven  the  prayers  of  the  congregation,  being  united 
in  this  offering,  have  ascended  for  each  one.  None 
has  been  forgotten,  none  overlooked. 

This  is  our  ideal  of  a  church  in  use.  Can  we  not 
do  something  to  make  the  ideal  a  reality  ? 


THE  HOLY  COMMUNION  185 


XX. 

THE  HOLY  COMMUNION 

THE  tragic  blunder  of  Protestantism  has  been  its 
failure  to  make  the  Lord's  own  service  the  cen- 
tral act  of  worship  on  the  Lord's  own  day.  The  tragic 
blunder  of  Romanism  has  been  its  fatal  emphasis  on 
the  sacrificial  aspect  of  the  service  to  the  neglect  of 
communion. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  is  easily  the  most  intelligible 
and  popular  because  it  is  the  most  dramatic  and 
appealing  service  of  all  the  many  methods  of  Chris- 
tian worship.  That  must  have  been  apparent  to  any 
one  who  read  the  last  chapter  carefully.  But  the 
service  is  not  only  dramatic  and  appealing,  it  is  also 
so  intensely  human.  It  is  all  this,  because  it  is  com- 
munion and  fellowship  with  a  Lord  and  Leader.  It 
is  communicated  character.  Goodness  is  the  one  thing 
we  cannot  keep  to  ourselves.  This  service  is  the 
Lord's  way  of  communicating  His  goodness  to  us.^ 

In  the  last  chapter  we  found  that  Christ's  offering 
of  Himself  on  Calvary,  to  be  effectual,  must  be  lifted 


^  See  my  Experiment  of  Faith,  chapter  xiii. 


186  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

up  in  heaven  and  pleaded  for  the  souls  of  men  on 
earth.  Both  actions  are  essentially  sacrificial  and  in 
their  union  man  finds  a  satisfaction  for  sin  and  the 
possibility  of  restored  fellowship  with  God.  But 
while  the  sacrifice  makes  our  reunion  with  God  pos- 
sible, it  is  the  feeding  upon  the  sacrifice  that  makes 
it  actual.  We  turn  then  to  the  thought  of  com- 
munion in  the  Eucharist. 

To  have  not  merely  the  remission  of  sin  and  the 
removal  of  the  barrier  that  kept  him  from  God,  but 
on  his  restoration  to  have  sensible  fellowship  with  the 
Almighty — this  also  is  one  of  man's  natural  religious 
instincts.  He  desires  to  commune  with  the  divinity 
he  worships,  to  hold  converse  with  God  and  to  have 
some  sensible  token  that  God  holds  intercourse  with 
him. 

So  we  find  in  all  religions  some  effort  toward 
realizing  this  communion.  The  Jews  had  their  sacri- 
ficial feasts,  when  offerings  were  made  to  God  and 
then  partaken  of,  in  part  by  the  offerer  and  in  part 
by  the  priest  as  the  representative  of  God — thus 
showing  that  God  had  accepted  the  offering  and  in 
token  of  restored  friendship  was  now  sitting  at  the 
same  board  with  the  pardoned  offender.  Outside  the 
covenant,  there  were  like  feasts  where  men  met 
together  to  sup  with  the  gods  they  worshipped.  These 
were  all  efforts  at  satisfying  man's  craving  for  divine 
communion — poor  efforts  indeed,  following  exagger- 
ated and  degraded  notions  about  the  deity,  ending 
often  in  disaster  (for  what  should  have  been  offerings 


THE  HOLY  COMMUNION  187 

of  perfect  love  and  purity  became  dninken  revels  and 
lewd  debauches)  but  efforts  nevertheless.  Behind  all 
the  awful  degradation  of  heathen  worship,  as  back 
of  all  the  formalism  of  the  Jewish  service,  there  was 
a  real  truth,  a  truth  that  voiced  the  instinct  of  every 
human  breast,  the  desire  of  man  for  fellowship, 
communion,  and  intercourse  with  His  Maker. 

When  our  Lord  Christ  came  to  found  His  king- 
dom and  to  establish  the  perfect  religion.  He  pro- 
vided a  supreme  way  of  satisfying  this  need  as  He 
satisfied  all  the  needs  of  men.  His  incarnate  pres- 
ence— God  with  us — made  it  easier  to  understand 
that  man  could  come  into  personal  touch  with  his 
Maker.  All  this  we  saw  in  the  chapters  on  God's 
presence  and  personality  as  made  known  in  Christ's 
unveiling  of  deity.  But  the  gift  did  not  cease  when 
Christ  was  "received  up  in  glory".  Before  His  depar- 
ture He  instituted  the  Eucharist  as  the  means  by 
which  we  may  meet  with  Him  now.  Henceforth  men 
were  not  merely  to  sup  with  God,  they  were  to  feed 
on  God.  As  He  nourished  their  bodies,  so  now  He 
would  nourish  their  souls.  He  sent  from  heaven  the 
True  Bread  that  giveth  life  to  the  world,  that  those 
who  were  His  might  feed  upon  Him  and  not  die.  "If 
any  man  eat  of  this  bread  he  shall  live  forever;  for 
whoso  eateth  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  blood  hath 
eternal  life,  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day." 

As  showing  how  we  have  here  the  fulfilment  of 
what  man's  natural  religious  instinct  had  taught  him 
to  strive  for,  it  is  interesting  to  trace  in  what  Liv- 
ingston and  others  tell  us  of  the  customs  of  savage 


188  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

tribes,  how  "a  persuasion  has  existed  in  the  world 
that  to  receive  a  man's  blood,  i.  e.,  his  nature,  is  to 
have  the  potentiality  of  being  made  like  him"  and 
how  "the  further  conviction  has  arisen  that  if  we 
would  be  made  like  the  gods  we  must  receive  their 
blood,  or  in  some  other  way  hold  intercommunion 
with  them."  ^  That  which  man  had  been  feeling  after 
in  all  parts  of  the  world  and  expressing  in  blood  cove- 
nants was  now  to  be  set  forth  in  such  memorable  terms 
as  could  never  be  forgotten.  As  men  had  supposed 
themselves  united  to  a  stranger  and  becoming  his 
brother  through  the  drinking  or  commingling  of  blood 
in  solemn  covenant,  so  (shadow  growing  into  sub- 
stance) they  were  indeed  to  become  united  to  the  Son 
of  God  by  the  drinking  of  His  blood  and  the  reception 
of  His  nature. 

It  is,  then,  a  gracious  love  feast  to  which  we  are 
invited — to  which,  indeed,  we  are  commanded — and 
to  which  we  must  come  if  we  would  live ;  for  "except 
we  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man  and  drink  His 
blood  we  have  no  life  in  us." 

Emphasis  should  be  laid  upon  the  necessity  for 
coming  in  the  right  spirit,  with  the  earnest  desire  to 
receive  the  very  nature  of  our  Lord  Himself.  By  this 
is  meant  not  merely  coming  after  a  certain  formal 
preparation,  but  rather  that  there  must  be  a  real 
desire  to  identify  one's  self  with  the  sacrifice  of  Christ 
both  in  His  life  and  in  His  death.     The  important 


Walpole:  Vital  Religion. 


THE  HOLY  COMMUNION  189 

thing  in  any  preparation  for  conimnnion  is  this  iden- 
tification of  the  worshipper  with  his  Lord,  this  sin- 
cere resolve  to  correspond  to  His  great  sacrifice  by 
offering  our  lives  a  willing  service  and  sacrifice  in 
return.  Coming  thns,  we  are  sure  never  to  go  away 
disappointed.  At  the  altar,  if  our  own  offering  of 
self  has  been  sincere,  we  may  always  be  certain  of 
receiving  the  very  substance  and  virtue  of  our  Lord's 
soul  and  body.  The  gift  is  mutual.  We  must  really 
and  honestly  try  to  give  of  ourselves,  knowing  that  if 
we  make  the  offering  Christ  in  response  actually  gives 
us  of  Himself,  that  so  we  may  have  strength  to 
complete  and  perfect  in  deed  what  we  have  thus 
dedicated  in  will.  It  is  the  absence  of  such  a  spirit 
that  has  made  Holy  Communion  so  unreal  and  arti- 
ficial for  ourselves  and  often  for  others  an  act  of 
Pharisaical  hypocrisy.  Sometimes,  with  distress,  one 
looks  at  those  who  come  forward  for  communion  in 
church  and  fails  to  see  any  indication  of  the  spirit  of 
sacrifice.  There  is  rather — Grod  forgive  us  if  it  be 
uncharitable  to  say  it — a  certain  air  of  smugness  and 
self-satisfaction  which  does  much  to  keep  others  away. 
Yet  we  know  the  gift  is  there  for  those  who  come 
aright  to  receive  it.  We  know,  whether  we  can  under- 
stand it  or  not.  We  look  at  those  around  us,  and 
recognize  at  once  the  ones  who  have  been  fed.  One 
can  almost  certainly  pick  out  those  who  make  "good 
communions" — communions  where  they  receive  of 
our  Lord  because  they  give  of  themselves.  Other  men 
have  a  measure  of  religious  fervor,  of  goodwill  toward 
men  and  love  to  God,  but  these  despite  occasional 


190  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

faults  rise  to  greater  heights;  they  live  and  move  in 
a  higher  sphere;  they  love  more  than  other  people, 
they  can  do  more.  They  have  been  fed  with  heavenly 
food,  and  in  their  lives  they  show  a  celestial  strength 
and  beauty. 

Holy  Communion  is  the  great  fact  of  the  Church's 
life;  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  worship. 
The  prayers  and  praises  of  the  Church  lack  vitality 
without  it,  the  efforts  of  individual  Christians  come 
to  nothing  apart  from  it.  It  is  the  center  and  source 
of  our  religious  life,  without  which  all  the  rest  is  a 
mere  shell.  We  do  not  live  in  the  flesh  without  bodily 
nourishment,  nor  do  we  really  live  in  the  spirit  if  we 
have  not  the  food  that  sustains  the  spiritual  life. 
We  cannot  come  to  the  table  of  the  Lord  too  often, 
if  we  come  with  due  preparation  and  in  the  spirit  of 
mutual  sacrifice ;  it  is  a  privilege  to  be  accepted  gladly, 
though  with  reverence  and  humility  and  awe.  The 
early  disciples  continued  daily  in  the  breaking  of 
the  bread,  daily  they  knelt  at  the  sacred  board,  and 
the  highest  ideal  of  the  Christian  life  to-day  is  not  less 
than  it  was  then.  At  least  we  can  let  no  Lord's  Day 
pass  without  our  presence  at  the  sacred  feast  and  we 
ought  to  aim  at  a  time  when  we  may  receive  each 
Sunday,  making  every  week  a  round  of  thankful 
remembrance  of  the  blessed  gift  and  solemn  antici- 
pation of  its  renewal. 

It  sometimes  is  asked,  why  Churchmen  celebrate 
the  Holy  Eucharist  so  often;  whether  it  does  not 
detract  from  the  solemn  character  of  the  feast  to  hold 
it  with  such  frequency.    As  well  ask  whether  we  are 


THE  HOLY  COMMUNION  191 

not  in  danger  of  praying  too  often.  Is  there  anything 
more  solemn  than  prayer  ?  In  it  the  soul  meets  God 
face  to  face.  Yet  no  one  would  dream  of  praying 
only  at  long  intervals  from  fear  lest  this  solemn  act 
of  supplication  should  lose  its  reality  because  of  the 
frequency  of  its  repetition.  Now  the  Holy  Eucharist 
is  a  prayer  in  action;  it  pleads  with  God  and  by 
"showing  forth  His  death  till  He  come"  pleads  in  the 
name  of  Christ.  This  it  does  on  its  sacrificial  side; 
and  then  the  communion  is  the  immediate  response 
of  God  to  the  prayer.  While  one  should  not  come  to 
the  Eucharist  without  due  care  and  reverence,  our 
very  presence,  though  we  do  not  communicate,  is 
something  (though  it  is  not  everything),  and  as  we 
join  in  the  frequent  offering  we  gain  the  spirit  of 
sacrifice  that  will  enable  us  to  prepare  more  often  for 
worthy  reception. 

All  this,  if  we  once  grasp  the  thought  of  what 
the  Eucharist  really  means  as  a  feast  and  supper  as 
well  as  an  offering.  It  means  life  and  happiness  and 
union  with  Christ;  it  means  the  continued  washing 
and  cleansing  of  soul  and  body ;  it  means  refreshment 
and  peace ;  it  means  the  gradual  change  of  the  recip- 
ient into  the  likeness  of  Him  whom  he  receives;  it 
means  the  constant  abiding  of  Christ  in  us ;  it  means 
that  He  whom  the  heavens  cannot  contain  will  come 
to  us  and  make  us  His  temple,  full  of  the  beauty 
of  His  holiness  and  transformed  into  the  image  of 
His  glory. 


192  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXI. 
THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRESENCE 

THE  Holy  Communion  is  the  center  and  source 
of  the  Christian  life.  It  is  all  this  because  it  is 
a  real  feeding  on  Christ's  Body  and  Blood,  not  merely 
a  subjective  contemplation  of  His  divine  character 
and  His  earthly  work.  The  Eucharist  is  something 
more  than  a  symbol  and  assurance  of  Christ's 
presence  and  activity  on  our  behalf  in  heavenly 
places;  it  is  the  appointed  means  of  His  actual  pres- 
ence with  us  here  on  earth.  We  look  next,  then,  at 
the  doctrine  of  the  Eeal  Presence,  as  the  exposition 
of  the  third  great  fact  in  this  central  act  of  Christian 
worship. 

As  men  have  always  longed  for  restored  fellowship 
and  communion  with  God,  so  have  they  always  longed 
to  realize  His  presence  with  them.  It  is  not  enough 
for  them  to  know  that  He  is  ever3rwhere,  that  He  is 
immanent  in  nature,  that  His  power  manifests  itself 
equally  in  the  sweep  of  a  planet  in  its  orbit  and  the 
trembling  of  a  leaf  on  its  stem.  Men  want  a  partic- 
ular presence  of  God  with  them  and  in  their  poor 
efforts  at  worship  they  have  always  sought  to  find  such 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRESENCE  193 

a  presence.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the  idol  worship 
of  the  heathen  in  all  its  forms ;  for  there,  as  always, 
the  origin  of  the  false  religion  lies  in  the  exaggeration 
of  a  half-perceived  religious  truth.  Men  were  so 
anxious  for  a  special  manifestation  of  the  presence  of 
God  that  they  erected  some  object  of  devotion  as 
reminding  them  of  such  presence,  and  then  in  time 
identified  the  object  itself  with  the  presence  it  was 
supposed  to  indicate. 

If  we  believe  the  Jewish  worship  to  be  anything 
other  than  a  humanly  developed  system — if  it  is 
actually  a  God-directed  worship — then  we  see  how 
He  responded  to  this  longing  of  men  for  His  pres- 
ence. The  mysterious  Shekinah  was  a  special  mani- 
festation of  God.  The  presence  between  the  cherubim 
that  overshadowed  the  mercy  seat  was  God^s  reply  to 
man's  prayer  for  a  special  unveiling  of  His  glory. 

When  the  new  covenant,  the  Christian  dispensa- 
tion, succeeded  the  old,  surely  we  should  not  expect 
God  to  deny  a  like  privilege  to  men.  Eather,  an 
unspeakably  greater  blessing  was  bestowed  upon  them. 
God  became  incarnate;  His  special  presence  with 
human  nature  became  a  personal  union  that  was  to 
last  forever:  the  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us.  Where  Christ  was,  there  God  was.  The 
apostles  saw  with  their  eyes,  their  hands  actually 
handled  the  Word  of  Life. 

Once  more,  when  Christ  the  God-man  left  earth 
for  heaven  He  did  not  wholly  withdraw  Himself  from 
us.  We  cannot  believe  that  He  would  give  so  great 
a  blessing,  only  to  take  it  away.    Christ  is  yet  with 


194  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

His  people.  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together 
in  His  Name,  there  is  He  in  the  midst  of  them.  More- 
over, He  has  sent  the  Spirit  to  tabernacle  with  us,  to 
make  each  one  of  us  a  temple  where  He  may  dwell, 
so  that  He  inliabits  the  heart  of  a  baptized  believer 
as  He  does  not  dwell  elsewhere. 

Finally,  as  a  revelation  of  His  special  presence, 
our  Lord  has  ordained  the  holy  mystery  of  the  Eucha- 
rist, in  which  as  a  pledge  of  His  love  He  vouchsafes  to 
come  to  us  in  a  new  way.  It  must  be  that  He  meant 
to  assure  us  of  such  a  presence,  when  at  the  Holy 
Supper  He  used  such  mysterious  words.  When  He 
instituted  the  new  feast — so  we  read — He  took  bread 
and  blessed  and  brake  it,  saying  to  His  disciples,  "This 
is  My  Body:  this  is  My  Blood."  He  spoke  without 
qualification,  as  He  had  spoken  to  the  Jews  in  Caper- 
naum a  year  before,  when  He  told  them  that  the  bread 
which  He  would  give  was  His  flesh,  which  He  would 
give  for  the  life  of  the  world. 

It  is  commonly  objected  to  this  view  that  our 
Lord's  words  here  are  purely  figurative.  Figurative 
they  are,  we  may  well  suppose.  Plainly  so,  for  when 
He  used  the  words  "This  is  My  Body;  this  is  My 
Blood,"  His  body  stood  before  them  unimpaired  and 
He  was  surely  not  speaking  in  the  ordinary  language 
of  humdrum  prose.  The  difficulty  is  that  when  men 
say  that  His  language  is  figurative  they  seem  to  think 
that  to  call  it  so  is  to  empty  it  of  all  meaning. 
Whereas  nearly  all  spiritual  language  is  figurative ;  its 
figurative  character,  however,  warns  us  that  the  mean- 
ing to  be  conveyed  is  not  less,  but  more.    The  figure 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRESENCE  195 

calls  for  a  heavier  burdening  of  the  language,  the 
soul  of  the  words  is  charged  with  a  greater  mission. 
It  is  a  figure  of  speech  to  speak  of  God  as  our  Father ; 
yet  in  what  words  could  the  great  truth  that  was  to 
be  told  be  better  revealed  than  in  those  which  bid  us 
see  in  heaven  the  divine  counterpart  of  fatherhood  on 
earth  ?  Here,  then,  in  the  words  which  Christ  uses  of 
the  Holy  Supper,  if  the  language  be  figurative  it  is 
not  on  that  account  emptied  of  meaning;  rather  it  is 
charged  with  richer  thought.  How  tremendous  must 
be  the  reality  which  needs  such  metaphor  to  express 
its  meaning !  The  inner  conception  must  be  at  least 
as  great  as  the  figure  itself. 

What  our  Lord  said,  then,  the  Church  has  always 
taught.  She  declares  that  when  the  bread  and  wine 
of  the  Eucharist  are  consecrated  they  become  in  some 
real,  though  mysterious,  spiritual  way,  an  actuality 
so  great  that  we  can  speak  of  it  only  as  the  very  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ  Himself.  She  cannot  explain 
liow  the  change  is  made;  for  Christ  Himself  did  not 
explain  it.  When  men  object  to  the  doctrine  she 
can  but  repeat  it  in  faith.  She  can  say  no  more  than 
her  Lord  and  He  but  reiterated  His  words  when  the 
unbelieving  disciples  found  His  language  too  hard 
for  them.  So  the  Church  has  stated  the  fact.  For 
a  thousand  years  men  were  content  to  kneel  before 
the  sacred  food,  accepting  that  statement,  believing 
though  they  could  not  understand.  Then  came  the 
denial  of  the  mystery  by  some  who  withdrew  from  the 
Church  and  placed  themselves  in  hostile  array  against 


196  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

her.  Again  this  eucharistic  concord  was  broken  by 
those  who  in  their  anxiety  to  defend  the  doctrine 
forgot  the  truth  that  the  figurative  is  the  expression 
of  the  real  and  in  an  excessive  insistence  upon  a  lit- 
eral interpretation  attempted  to  answer  that  question, 
"How?"  to  which  our  Lord  at  the  outset  declined  to 
reply.  In  attempting  to  philosophize  about  the  pres- 
ence the  Eoman  Church  added  to  the  Catholic  teach- 
ing an  attempted  explanation  of  the  way  or  manner  in 
which  Christ  is  present  in  the  Eucharist.  This  met- 
aphysical explanation  is  called  Transubstantiation. 
Suppose  we  all  held  and  taught  that  a  living  man 
on  earth  is  an  entity  composed  of  body  and  spirit  and 
there  most  of  us  stopped.  Then  suppose  some  ven- 
turesome people  went  beyond  this  explanation,  alleg- 
ing that  the  connecting  link  which  united  the  two 
and  made  man  a  living  being  was  the  saline  principle 
in  the  blood.  Then  suppose  they  were  to  insist  that 
unless  we  accepted  their  own  explanation  of  the  mys- 
tery of  life  they  would  have  no  dealings  with  us.  That 
is  precisely  what  Eome  has  done  in  trying  to  define 
the  eucharistic  presence.  Transubstantiation  and  the 
tery  of  life  they  would  have  no  dealings  with  us.  That 
one  doctrine  is  an  attempt  to  explain  the  other.  While 
the  Anglican  Church  has  rejected  the  explanation,  she 
holds  carefully  to  the  fact  which  it  seeks  to  explain. 
In  the  philosophical  language  in  which  it  is  couched 
the  Eoman  doctrine  is  capable  of  an  orthodox  inter- 
pretation, but  in  the  popular  understanding  of  the 
term  it  overthrows  the  nature  of  a  sacrament  and 


ERRATUM 

Page  196 

The  two  sentences  beginning  on  the  22nd  line 
should  read: 

Transubstantiation  and  the  real  presence  are  not  one 
and  the  same  thing.  The  one  doctrine  is  an  attempt 
to  explain  the  other. 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRESENCE  197 

because  of  its  slavish  following  of  the  literal  leads 
to  superstition  and  error. 

As  to  what  we  actually  mean  by  the  real  presence, 
however,  a  simple  explanation  will  be  found  in  the 
familiar  parable  of  the  magnet.  Take  a  bar  of  steel 
and  rub  it  with  a  lodestone.  You  cannot  see  any 
change  in  it,  examine  it  as  you  will — it  looks  just 
what  it  was  before  and  yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
has  become  something  more ;  it  is  now  a  magnet,  and 
in,  with,  and  under  the  steel  there  exists  a  new  power. 
So,  in  the  Holy  Eucharist,  the  bread  and  wine,  after 
consecration,  seem  to  be  exactly  what  they  were  before 
and  yet  they,  too,  have  become  something  more.  Not 
ceasing  to  be  materially  what  they  were,  they  have 
become  spiritually  what  they  were  not.  There  is,  in, 
with,  and  under  the  material  things,  a  spiritual  real- 
ity, whose  power  can  be  received,  whose  influence  felt. 

By  the  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist 
is  meant  that  He  is  truly  and  really  there.  Real  does 
not  mean  material.  The  most  real  things  are  the 
spiritual  things.  The  most  real  thing  about  myself 
is  not  my  body,  but  my  soul,  that  thing  that  gives 
me  individuality  and  makes  me  myself.  And  the 
most  real  thing  about  the  Holy  Eucharist  is  not  the 
outward  symbol,  the  bread  and  wine  that  we  see,  but 
the  hidden  presence,  spiritual  yet  none  the  less  actual, 
the  presence  of  Him  who  promised  to  make  this  feast 
the  means  of  communicating  to  us  His  own  very  life, 
His  strength,  His  power ;  in  short.  Himself. 

We  have  in  the  Eucharist  an  exact  counterpart 


198  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

of  the  Incarnation.  Christ  was  God  and  without 
ceasing  to  be  God  He  became  man.  He  is  human 
and  at  the  same  time  He  is  divine.  He  exists  as  one 
person  in  the  perfection  of  both  natures.  So  the 
eucharistic  elements  are  bread  and  wine  and  at  the 
same  time  they  are  the  precious  Body  and  Blood. 
They  have  not  ceased  to  be  the  first  by  becoming  the 
second;  they  are  not  less  the  second  because  they 
remain  the  first.  It  may  be  questioned  whether,  in 
most  cases,  those  who  refuse  to  believe  in  the  fact  of 
the  eucharistic  presence  have  ever  seriously  contem- 
plated the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  have  ever  fully 
realized  that  Christ  from  the  very  moment  of  His 
conception  was  still  God,  that  as  He  lay  on  Mary^s 
breast  He  was  the  Supreme  Head  of  the  universe, 
as  He  hung  upon  the  cross  dying  in  agony  He  was 
present  in  all  creation  ruling  by  His  power. 

We,  then,  who  believe  in  the  Incarnation,  believe 
also  in  the  eucharistic  extension  of  its  blessings,  we 
believe  though  we  cannot  understand  or  explain. 
"Guided  by  Scripture,'^  says  an  Anglican  theologian 
whose  work  is  recommended  by  the  Bishops  of  the 
American  Church — "guided  by  Scripture,  the  Church 
establishes  only  those  truths  which  Scripture  reveals, 
and  leaves  the  subject  in  that  mystery  in  wliich  God 
for  His  wise  purposes  has  invested  it.  Taking  as  her 
immovable  foundation  the  words  of  Jesus  Christy 
'This  is  My  Body,'  This  is  My  Blood,'  and  ^Vhoso 
eateth  My  flesh  and  drinketh  My  Blood  hath  eternal 
life,'  she  believes  that  the  Body  or  Flesh  and  the 
Blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Creator  and  Redeemer  of 


THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRESENCE  199 

the  world,  both  God  and  man,  united  indivisibly  in 
one  person,  are  verily  and  indeed  given  to,  taken, 
eaten,  and  received  by  the  faithful  in  the  Lord's 
Supper,  under  the  outward  sign  or  form  of  bread  and 
wine.  She  believes  that  the  Eucharist  is  not  the 
sign  of  an  ah  sent  body,  and  that  those  who  partake  of 
it,  receive  not  merely  the  figure,  or  shadow,  or  sign 
of  Christ's  Body,  but  the  reality  itself.  And  as 
Christ's  divine  and  human  natures  are  inseparably 
united,  so  she  believes  that  we  receive  in  the  Eucha- 
rist not  only  the  Flesh  and  Blood  of  Christ,  but  Christ 
Himself  both  God  and  man."  ' 

This  is  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  altar.  It 
is  Christ's  throne,  where  He  waits  to  meet  and  bless 
His  people.  Here  the  Church's  service  reaches  its 
fitting  climax,  so  human  is  this  sacrament,  while  yet 
so  divine :  so  human,  for  the  gift  is  hidden  under  nat- 
ural signs  and  veiled  as  being  too  bright  for  mortal 
eyes  to  gaze  upon;  so  divine,  for  its  mystic  power 
seems  ever  ready  to  burst  into  a  flame  of  glory. 
"Surely,  the  Lord  is  in  this  place,  and  I  knew  it  not. 
This  is  none  other  but  the  house  of  God,  and  this  is 
the  gate  of  heaven." 


^  Palmer :  On  the  Church,  Part  II.,  chapter  vii. 


200  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXII. 
PREPARATION  FOR  HOLY  COMMUNION 

HOW  should  one  prepare  for  Holy  Communion? 
What  amount  of  preparation  is  necessary?  If 
it  is  a  thing  so  sacred  and  mysterious  as  the  Church 
teaches,  coming  to  it  ought  to  be  seriously  and 
solemnly  considered.  One  is  so  afraid  of  coming 
unworthily.  How  shall  we  be  sure  we  are  not  so 
coming?  What  is  a  "good"  communion?  These  are 
questions  often  asked  of  every  pastor  who  is  trying  to 
instruct  his  people  in  the  Church's  ways. 

It  ought  always  to  be  said  at  once  that  a  right 
approach  to  the  Holy  Communion  means  not  so  much 
coming  after  a  formal  preparation  as  coming  in  the 
spirit  of  sacrifice,  with  a  genuine  and  hearty  desire  to 
live  Christ's  life  and  be  "crucified  with  Him"  in  His 
perfect  offering  of  Himself,  soul  and  body,  to  His 
Father.  After  all,  as  someone  has  said,  since  Holy 
Communion  is  above  everything  else  food  for  the  soul, 
we  come  to  the  altar  because  we  are  spiritually  hun- 
gry. The  fundamental  preparation  for  communion 
is  a  life  of  such  earnestness  and  unselfishness  that 
one  is  compelled  to  come  in  order  to  receive  grace  and 


PREPARATION  FOR  HOLY  COMMUNION      201 

strength  to  carry  on  this  daily  work.  The  best  prep- 
aration for  a  worthy  communion  is  "a  life  of  service, 
so  unselfish  and  exacting  that  it  demands  God,  in 
order  to  live  it." 

Yet  we  need  method  here  as  in  everything  else. 
It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  in  religious 
things  we  need  no  plans  and  methods.  What  is  left 
to  be  done  on  impulse  is  usually  not  done  at  all.  We 
do  indeed  come  to  the  Lord's  table  because  we  need 
Him;  but  unless  we  take  time  to  think  about  it  we 
are  likely  to  forget  how  great  our  need  actually  is; 
and  in  order  to  avoid  vagueness  it  is  well  to  have  some 
particular  form  of  thought  and  prayer  for  use  before 
approaching  the  holy  feast.  Such  forms  are  given  us 
in  every  manual  of  devotion  and  it  would  be  a  safe 
rule  for  most  of  us  to  use  at  least  that  much  of 
preparation  before  every  communion. 

To  say  such  offices,  however,  should  be  but  a  min- 
imum of  devotion.  There  ought  to  be  an  effort  to 
supplement  this  by  some  special  thought  and  medi- 
tation of  our  own.  Along  these  lines  there  are  many 
methods  that  may  be  recommended. 

(1)  For  example,  one  way  of  preparation  is  by 
examination  for  sin.  How  often  this  consists  simply 
of  reading  over  the  questions  in  a  manual  and  men- 
tally acknowledging  our  faults  under  the  several 
divisions.  What  we  need,  rather,  is  a  serious  search- 
ing of  the  heart  for  particular  sins,  with  enough  time 
given  to  this  one  single  search  to  make  the  offense 
plain  to  one's  own  conscience.  We  take  a  review  of 
the   week,    asking   ourselves    if    we   have    struggled 


202  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

against  any  one  particular  fault.  Then  we  ask  what 
sin  we  most  need  to  fight  against.  What  is  the  sin 
I  have  committed  oftenest  since  my  last  communion? 
What  is  the  fault  I  most  hesitate  to  confess?  What 
is  the  thing  I  should  be  most  ashamed  to  have  others 
know  about  ?  What  shames  me  most  when  I  think  of 
facing  God  at  the  judgment?  So  we  take  this  sin, 
and  come  to  the  Eucharist,  asking  strength  to  over- 
come it,  and  as  we  ask  for  the  grace,  resolving  to  make 
our  own  effort  also. 

(2)  Again,  we  may  vary  this  method  by  fixing 
upon  some  sin  and  then  with  regard  to  that  asking 
ourselves  three  questions  as  we  look  forward  to  our 
communion :  Who  is  coming  to  me  in  this  sacrament  ? 
To  whom  is  He  coming?  Why  does  He  come?  Sup- 
pose we  have  been  struggling  against  a  sharp  temper. 
We  ask: 

(i)  Who  is  coming  to  me  in  this  sacrament?  My 
Lord  Himself.  He  who  suffered  every  indignity  at 
the  hands  of  His  persecutors;  who  was  struck  in  the 
face,  spit  upon,  mocked,  insulted ;  when  He  was 
reviled  reviled  not  again,  when  He  suffered  He  threat- 
ened not.  He  who  as  He  hung  on  the  cross,  with  the 
nails  piercing  His  hands  and  feet,  with  every  muscle 
wrung  and  wrenched  as  the  cross  sunk  into  its  place, 
was  able  even  in  the  agony  of  suffering  to  pray  for 
those  who  tortured  Him,  "Father,  forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do." 

(ii)  To  whom  is  He  coming?  To  me  who  pre- 
tend to  be  His  follower,  who  have  His  sign  upon  me, 
who  are  named  with  His  name  and  would  be  offended 


PREPARATION  FOR  HOLY  COMMUNION      203 

if  men  did  not  call  me  a  Christian — and  yet  cannot 
bear  one  trying  word  or  slight,  spoke  so  sharply  to 
such  an  one  only  yesterday,  lost  my  temper  this  morn- 
ing, am  apt  to  criticize  at  the  slightest  provocation 
and  say  biting,  sarcastic,  angry  things  to  the  ones  who 
love  me  most. 

(iii)  And  why  does  He  come  ?  To  make  me  more 
like  Himself,  patient,  sweet  tempered,  and  kindly; 
strong  and  manly  but  with  the  gentleness  which  the 
First  Gentleman  always  showed. 

We  may  vary  the  questions  from  week  to  week, 
taking  one  fault  at  a  time.  Suppose  the  sin  be  sloth- 
fulness  in  prayer.  Then  we  put  our  three  questions 
in  some  such  form  as  this : 

(i)  Who  is  coming?  My  Lord,  who  though  He 
was  often  so  pressed  with  work  that  He  had  not  so 
much  as  time  to  eat  and  drink  yet  always  found 
opportunity  for  devotion;  rose  a  great  while  before 
it  was  day  that  He  might  be  alone  with  His  Father; 
spent  the  whole  night  sometimes  in  intercession ;  even 
on  the  cross,  though  suffering  physical  agony  beyond 
description,  used  His  last  moments  in  prayer. 

(ii)  To  whom  is  He  coming?  To  one  who  rose 
so  late  this  morning  that  he  had  time  only  for  a 
hurried  sentence,  said  so  unthinkingly  that  probably 
it  never  reached  the  ear  of  God ;  to  one  who  yesterday 
put  off  his  devotions  till  night  and  then  hurried  over 
them  when  tired  and  half  asleep;  to  one  who  needs 
grace  so  much  to  correct  his  many  faults,  and  yet 
time  and  again  neglects  to  pray  for  it. 

(iii)   And  why  is  He  coming?     To  help  me  to 


204  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

realize  His  continual  presence  and  in  my  prayers  to 
speak  to  Him  face  to  face. 

We  take  our  own  sins,  whatever  they  may  be,  and 
selecting  one  for  each  communion,  ask  these  ques- 
tions, pausing  over  them  in  meditation,  and  then 
during  the  week  after  communion  going  back  and 
in  our  nightly  self-examination  asking  if  we  have 
improved  in  this  one  point. 

(3)  Or  suppose,  before  each  communion  we  hit 
upon  one  duty  which  we  shall  try  to  perform  more 
carefully,  more  eagerly,  more  lovingly.  Suppose  we 
find  some  one  person  we  can  help,  some  one  act  of 
usefulness  we  can  perform,  some  one  domestic  kind- 
ness that  may  be  cultivated,  something  in  the  busi- 
ness life  or  the  social  round  in  which  we  may  apply 
our  Christian  principles,  and  then  set  ourselves  ear- 
nestly to  the  task  of  doing  this.  By  the  time  of  our 
next  communion  it  would  create  such  a  compelling 
need  of  God  in  our  hearts  that  we  should  consider 
this  Eucharist  not  a  duty  but  an  absolute  necessity. 
"Hard  work  will  make  a  man  hungry  for  his  daily 
bread,"  says  the  chaplain  of  one  of  our  universities, 
"and  nothing  but  hard  work  and  unselfish  living 
will  make  a  man  hungry  for  God." 

(4)  Again,  we  may  prepare  for  some  Eucharist 
by  passing  to  the  thought  of  thanksgiving.  One  is 
apt  to  grow  morbid  over  the  searching  for  sin — how 
much  brighter  and  sweeter  will  be  our  life  if  we  also 
seek  to  remember  the  many  things  for  which  we 
should  be  grateful !  Coming  to  communion  with  our 
hearts  full  because  of  some  special  blessing,  we  shall 


PREPARATION  FOR  HOLY  COMMUNION      205 

find  the  thought  of  thanksgiving  continually  recur- 
ring throughout  the  whole  Prayer  Book  service.  In 
the  prayer  for  the  Church  militant  we  ''give  thanks 
for  all  men".  The  absolution  brings  the  thought  of 
thankfulness  for  the  forgiveness  of  the  sins  we  have 
just  confessed,  and  the  comfortable  words  carry  out 
that  expression  of  gratitude;  in  the  prayer  of  conse- 
cration we  render  hearty  thanks  for  the  innumerable 
benefits  procured  unto  us  by  Christ's  passion,  death, 
resurrection,  and  ascension,  and  we  desire  God  to 
accept  the  offering  as  a  sacrifice  of  praise  and  thanks- 
giving; and  so  throughout. 

(5)  Or  there  is  also  the  element  of  praise  and  wor- 
ship. For  preparation  some  week  it  might  be  well  to 
read  over  the  service  in  order  to  fix  upon  certain  ways 
of  expressing  this,  praying  meanwhile  that  God  will 
give  us  the  spirit  of  worship,  the  adoring  spirit,  that 
worship  may  become  our  chief  joy  here  as  it  must 
be  in  heaven.  The  service  begins  with  the  prayer  for 
the  cleansing  of  our  hearts  that  we  may  magnify 
God's  Holy  Name ;  the  Sursum  Corda  and  Sanctus  lift 
us  into  the  atmosphere  of  heavenly  adoration;  the 
prayer  of  consecration  begins  and  ends  with  praise, 
"All  glory  be  to  Thee,  Almighty  God,  our  heavenly 
Father,"  and  "By  whom  and  with  whom,  in  the 
unity  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  all  honor  and  glory  be  unto 
Thee,  0  Father  Almighty,  world  without  end,"  and 
the  strain  is  repeated  in  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis,  as 
well  as  in  other  portions  of  the  service. 

So,  for  example,  we  may  make  our  preparation 
some  week  lie  in  the  effort  to  realize  more  fully  that 


206  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  Eucharist  binds  our  earthly  worship  with  that 
of  the  saints  and  angels  in  heaven.  We  recall  such 
a  picture  as  that  in  St.  Margaret's  Church,  Liver- 
pool, in  the  upper  part  of  which  is  a  representation 
of  the  adoration  of  the  Lamb  that  had  been  slain, 
the  ineffable  Victim  lying  upon  the  celestial  altar, 
angels  and  saints  being  around  Him;  in  the  lower 
part,  an  earthly  altar  properly  vested  and  decorated, 
on  it  the  chalice  and  paten,  a  priest  in  front  with 
arms  extended  as  he  makes  the  sacrificial  prayer,  and 
kneeling  by  him  a  company  of  the  faithful,  men, 
women,  and  children;  and  as  explanatory  of  the  two 
scenes,  as  it  were  unifying  and  identifying  them, 
streams  of  golden  light  issuing  from  the  Lamb  above 
and  descending  upon  the  sacred  vessels  below.  What 
the  Church  on  earth  is  doing  in  eucharistic  worship 
that  same  thing  the  Church  in  heaven  is  doing  at  the 
same  moment  in  like  adoration  and  the  priest  at  the 
altar  here  is  fulfilling  the  service  of  Him  who  repre- 
sents us  and  pleads  for  us  in  heaven.  With  this 
picture  in  mind,  we  go  over  the  service  again,  finding 
the  idea  brought  out,  for  example,  in  the  Sanctiis, 
where  with  angels  and  archangels  and  with  all  the 
company  of  heaven  we  laud  and  magnify  God's  glo- 
rious name  as  we  join  in  the  seraphic  hymn.  Careful 
thought  like  this  through  the  previous  week  will  make 
our  worship  very  real  at  the  next  Eucharist,  and  if  we 
come  also  with  special  intercessory  intention  our 
prayers  will  be  more  fervent  as  we  offer  our  petitions 
for  our  friends,  ourselves,  or  the  Church  at  large. 
Indeed  it  is  always  possible  to  give  great  reality  to 


PREPARATION  FOR  HOLY  COMMUNION      207 

the  service  by  making  it  an  occasion  of  intercession 
for  those  whom  we  know  who  are  "in  trouble,  sorrow, 
need,  sickness,  or  any  other  adversity,"  as  well  as  of 
mingled  thanksgiving  and  prayer  for  those  who  have 
departed  this  life  in  God's  faith  and  fear. 

(6)  Once  more,  we  may  use  the  various  parts  of 
the  service  itself  as  a  basis  of  meditation,  seeking  to 
bring  the  imagination  into  play ;  thus,  at  the  offertory 
praying  for  generosity  and  picturing  the  poor  widow 
as  she  cast  her  two  mites  into  the  treasury;  at  the 
confession,  asking  for  such  penitence  as  that  of  the 
publican;  at  the  absolution,  seeing  our  Lord  bending 
over  the  man  with  the  palsy  and  saying  to  him,  "Son, 
be  of  good  cheer:  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee";  at  the 
prayer  of  humble  access,  seeing  the  woman  that  had 
been  a  sinner  prostrate  at  our  Lord^s  feet,  bathing 
them  with  her  tears  and  wiping  them  with  her  hair. 

(7)  Or  we  may  follow  the  division  of  the  Church 
year,  and  so  at  different  seasons  vary  our  thought 
of  the  Eucharist :  at  Christmas,  making  it  turn  on  the 
real  presence;  in  Lent,  on  the  thought  of  sacrifice; 
at  Easter,  on  the  joy  of  sin  forgiven;  or  at  Ascension, 
we  may  try  to  picture  as  above  the  heavenly  oblation 
and  connect  it  with  that  on  earth,  so  that  with  angels 
and  archangels  and  all  the  company  of  heaven  we  may 
join  in  magnifying  God's  holy  name. 

What  we  need,  in  short,  is  more  than  the  formal 
saying  of  an  office  from  some  manual  of  devotion ;  we 
should  have  something  that  will  quicken  the  imagina- 
tion, stir  up  devotion,  and  give  freshness  to  each  com- 
munion.    No  one  is  so  busy  as  to  be  unable  to  set 


208  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

aside  a  little  time  for  this,  if  it  be  only  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  the  evening  before,  a  little  time  before  the 
service  in  church,  or  in  the  case  of  a  busy  man,  some 
brief  thought,  with  eyes  closed,  as  he  goes  to  and  fro 
on  train  or  car  to  his  office  or  work.  All  this  may 
sound  a  little  pietistic.  It  is  not  really  so,  if  we 
remember  that  there  is  no  suggestion  that  all  of  it 
shall  be  done  at  once.  And,  after  all,  do  we  not  need 
something  like  this  to  train  us  in  worship?  It  is 
said  that  Marshal  Foch  spends  many  hours  every 
week  in  devotions  before  the  altar — and  surely  he  is 
a  robust  type  of  manly  piety.  And  Kitchener,  who 
did  something  of  the  same  thing,  was  no  anaemic 
saint ! 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  209 


XXIII. 

CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION 

NO  one  who  has  the  mildest  sort  of  interest  in  the 
delightfully  humorous  sport  of  waving  red  rags 
before  angry  bulls  will  wish  to  miss  this  chapter! 
And  yet — and  yet — ^what  a  blessed  thing  it  would  be 
if  we  could  induce  some  passionate  partisans  to  lay 
aside  their  prejudices  and  reason  quietly  and  calmly 
about  a  matter  which  deeply  concerns  every  man  or 
woman  who  has  any  real  sense  of  sin  or  regards  sin 
as  anything  more  than  a  somewhat  unfortunate  mis- 
take, of  rather  slight  importance,  certainly  nothing 
to  give  us  grave  anxiety — God  is  so  good ! 

Sin  is  not  a  thing  to  be  treated  in  this  casual 
fashion.  In  any  discussion  of  confession  and  absolu- 
tion it  ought  to  be  stated  at  the  outset  that  the  ques- 
tion has  to  do  with  the  most  serious  concern  of  life, 
the  removal  of  the  barrier  that  separates  xls  from  God. 
It  would  be  absolutely  useless  to  discuss  it  with  one 
who  does  not  realize  the  awfulness  of  sin.  There 
must  be  something  more  than  a  readiness  to  confess 
that  we  have  faults  and  failings.  If  we  have  not 
the  consciousness  of  personal  guilt  present  and  dis- 


210  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

turbing  the  soul,  a  sense  of  the  grievousness  of  sin. 
a  feeling  that  in  our  own  case  its  burden  is  intoler- 
able, then  we  are  not  in  a  mood  to  discuss  any  method 
by  which  it  is  proposed  to  bring  us  the  blessing  and 
peace  of  forgiveness.  This  chapter,  then,  is  for  those 
who  know  what  sin  is,  who  are  troubled  and  concerned 
about  its  presence  within  them,  who  with  all  their 
heart  desire  to  be  rid  of  it  and  to  be  wholly  turned  to 
God.  So  often  questions  about  confession  are  asked 
in  a  flippant  or  argumentative  spirit.  It  never  does 
any  good  to  try  to  answer  them,  if  they  are  so  asked. 
But  if  it  be  realized  that  sin  is  a  dreadful  reality, 
awful  in  character,  deadly  in  its  consequences,  and 
that  to  discuss  it  is  a  solemn  and  serious  matter — 
in  that  case  a  quiet  consideration  of  the  subject  of 
confession  may  be  helpful. 

At  the  outset  it  will  be  well  to  emphasize  at  once 
the  fact  that  no  one  dreams  of  asserting  the  power 
of  a  priest,  in  himself,  to  forgive  sins.  All  worthy 
penitence,  whether  with  sacramental  confession  or 
without  it,  surely  receives  God's  fullest  forgiveness. 
No  priest  has  power  to  forgive  sins.  God  only  can  do 
that.  He  only  knows  the  heart  of  man  and  He  only 
can  pronounce  pardon.  It  is  well  to  note,  however, 
that  the  pardoning  authority  is  exercised  by  the 
Second  Person  of  the  Godhead.  "All  judgment  is 
committed  to  the  Son" — who,  because  He  has  become 
incarnate  and  has  lived  our  life  in  its  weakness  and 
limitations,  brings  us  the  assurance  that  we  are  judged 
by  One  who  has  experienced  our  temptations,  is  per- 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  211 

fectly  acquainted  with  our  infirmities  and  tenderly- 
pitiful  of  our  failings. 

As  if  to  emphasize  this,  our  Lord  once  worked  a 
miracle  to  prove  His  possession  of  the  authority. 
"That  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins — then  saith  He  to  the  sick 
of  the  palsy.  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed  and  go  unto  thine 
house."  It  is  significant  that  the  power  is  exercised 
by  Him  not  in  His  divine  nature  only  but  through 
His  humanity.  "The  Son  of  Man  hath  power  on 
earth  to  forgive  sins,"  He  says.  "He  hath  authority 
to  execute  judgment  also,  hecause  He  is  the  Son  of 
Man/' 

Let  us  notice  just  one  more  fact:  that  in  the  first 
offering  of  His  pardon  to  the  penitent  soul  our 
Lord  Christ  bestows  the  gift  by  means  of  a  sacrament. 
We  need  not  go  over  the  whole  subject  of  baptism 
again;  enough  to  say  that  conviction  of  sin,  conver- 
sion to  God,  and  faith  in  Christ  are  not  all  that  the 
sinner  needs;  if  these  are  real,  they  will  lead  him  to 
our  Lord  in  childlike  submission  to  His  will  to 
receive  pardon  in  the  way  He  offers  it,  by  complying 
with  the  simple  rite  which  He  ordained  for  the  heal- 
ing and  cleansing  of  our  moral  nature.  Here,  then, 
we  have  reached  a  point  where  a  remarkable  fact 
appears :  that  God  the  Son  in  offering  to  remove  the 
burden  and  guilt  of  sin  attaches  the  gift  to  outward, 
visible,  material  means.  And  not  only  that,  but 
uses  weak  and  fallible  men  as  His  instruments  in 
the  application  of  these  means.  It  surely  is  no  strain- 
ing of  logic  to  assert  that  if  God  uses  His  ministers 


212  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

in  the  bestowal  of  the  first  pardoning  gift  in  baptism 
He  may  also  use  them  in  renewing  our  baptismal 
purity  when  we  have  again  fallen  into  sin.  This 
is  exactly  what  absolution  does  for  us — it  is  a 
re-application  of  our  original  baptismal  blessing,  a 
daily  proffer  of  pardon,  given  through  outward  means 
and  by  the  authoritative  voice  of  God's  minister. 

How  else  but  on  this  theory  shall  we  explain  the 
passages  wherein  our  Lord  gives  special  authority 
to  the  Church  and  her  ministry  in  dispensing  the 
forgiveness  which  He  came  to  impart?  "As  My 
Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  send  I  you,"  He  says  to 
His  apostles.  He  breathed  on  them  and  said,  "Keceive 
ye  the  Holy  Ghost:  whosesoever  sins  ye  remit  they 
are  remitted  unto  them,  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain 
they  are  retained."  Nor  is  the  authority  given  to  the 
apostles  alone;  it  is  to  pass  on  to  their  successors. 
Telling  them  that  they  are  to  receive  power  from  on 
high  and  are  to  go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the 
gospel  to  every  creature.  He  adds  a  word  which  was 
not  fulfilled  in  them  personally  but  will  be  in  those 
who  have  afterward  entered  upon  the  same  office,  "Lo, 
I  am  with  you  alway  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 

Our  Lord,  then,  is  the  true  source  of  forgiveness ; 
He  exercises  His  power  as  Son  of  Man  in  His  human 
nature ;  He  appoints  others  to  carry  on  the  pardoning 
work  after  His  ascension,  in  His  Name;  He  endows 
them  with  the  Holy  Ghost  for  their  office  and  He 
provides  that  the  authority  given  them  shall  pass 
to  their  successors,  with  whom  He  guarantees  His 
presence  as  long  as  time  shall  last. 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  213 

The  place  of  confession  and  absolution  in  the 
Christian  life  is  seen,  therefore,  to  be  of  a  piece  with 
sacramental  doctrine  in  general.  Just  as  God  uses 
material  means  in  baptism  for  conveying  forgiveness 
and  new  life  to  the  soul,  just  as  in  Holy  Communion 
the  soul's  food  is  given  througli  outward  and  visible 
signs,  so  here  God  offers  a  special  gift  to  the  penitent, 
attaching  it  to  an  outward  form,  the  human  voice, 
the  solemn  gesture  of  benediction,  the  words  of  cov- 
enanted meaning.  There  is  no  question  whatever 
of  human  intervention  in  God's  gift  of  pardon.  He 
and  He  only  forgives  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
He  freely  forgives  all  in  whom  He  sees  the  move- 
ments of  contrition.  But  for  our  sake,  that  we  may 
be  helped  to  a  knowledge  of  self,  that  there  may  be 
fostered  in  us  a  real  and  sincere  sorrow  for  sin,  and 
that  our  faith  may  be  quickened  to  a  deeper  realiza- 
tion of  His  cleansing  grace.  He  has  provided  this 
special  sacramental  means  of  imparting  pardon  and 
grace,  using  for  that  purpose  as  His  authorized  agents 
and  representatives  the  ministers  of  His  Church. 
They  are  His  ambassadors,  speaking  in  His  name. 
He  has  committed  to  them  a  "ministry  of  reconcil- 
iation". 

In  all  that  has  been  said  thus  far  there  need  be 
no  reference  whatever  to  what  is  known  as  auricu- 
lar confession.  The  cleansing  grace  of  absolution  is 
received  in  the  public  offices  of  the  Church  as  truly  as 
in  the  private  administration  of  the  sacrament  of  pen- 
ance.    The  use  of  private  or  auricular  confession  is 


214  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

purely  a  matter  of  discipline  and  practical  utility; 
doctrinally  it  differs  in  no  way  from  public  and  gen- 
eral confession.  "In  itself,  so  far  as  the  movement 
of  grace  is  concerned,  the  absolution  is  the  same, 
whether  public  or  private.  The  difference  lies  in  the 
method  of  preparing  to  receive  it.  If  souls  are  able 
to  grasp  it  for  themselves  as  firmly,  it  is  as  valid 
and  full  when  uttered  in  a  general  formula  to  a 
thousand  together  as  when  uttered  to  them  one  by 
one.'^ ' 

Yet  it  may  be  questioned  whether  many  of  us 
have  so  complete  a  knowledge  of  self  or  so  intense 
and  vivid  a  realization  of  God's  presence,  that  we 
can  put  into  the  general  confession  the  same  deep 
penitence  as  into  a  particular  confession  or  receive 
from  the  general  absolution  the  same  comfort  and 
confident  assurance  as  from  words  addressed  to  us 
individually.  While  we  frankly  acknowledge,  then, 
that  private  confession  should  not  be  urged  indis- 
criminately upon  every  soul  and  freely  admit  some 
of  the  dangers  that  surround  it,  it  does  seem  that  for 
most  of  us  God  is  meeting  here  a  real  craving  of  the 
soul.  A  natural  impulse  leads  us  to  some  particular 
confession,  not  to  God  only  but  in  the  presence  of 
others.  So  it  was  with  those  who  were  baptized  by 
St.  John  in  the  Jordan,  "confessing  their  sins";  so 
with  those  at  Ephesus  who  had  been  convicted  of  sin 
and  "came  and  confessed  and  showed  their  deeds'\ 
Practically,  in  the   case  of  many  of  us,  is  it  not 


Mason:  The  Faith  of  the  Gospel. 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  215 

true  that  confession  to  God  alone  is  merely  admission 
of  sinfulness  rather  than  humble  confession  of  sins? 
Most  of  us  do  not  realize  very  keenly  the  presence  of 
God  and  to  tell  our  story  to  one  who  is  His  delegate 
fosters  a  holy  shame  and  contrition.  For  many  it 
seems  the  only  way  of  honor  (since  we  have  sinned 
against  an  Incarnate  Saviour  who  was  manifested  as 
man)  to  make  before  man  a  formal  acknowledgement 
and  confession.  Some  of  us,  too,  would  never  know 
our  sins  if  we  were  not  thus  forced  to  go  over  them  in 
detail.  Others  (and  that  from  no  weakness  or  inde- 
cision of  character)  need  the  aid  of  counsel  and  advice 
from  a  godly  and  experienced  minister,  and  though 
"direction"  is  no  necessary  part  of  penance  they  can- 
not get  this  without  telling  him  their  sins.  Some, 
without  any  morbidness,  long  for  the  personal  assur- 
ance of  forgiveness,  "Son,  daughter,  thy  sins  be 
forgiven  thee;  go  in  peace."  Yet  others  have  felt 
that  the  knowledge  that  they  must  from  time  to  time 
make  particular  and  detailed  confession  of  their  sins 
acts  as  a  restraining  influence  and  helps  them  to  con- 
quer such  sins  in  recurring  temptations.  They  ought 
not  to  need  such  restraint,  they  are  quite  aware, 
and  yet  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  do  need  it  and 
are  helped  by  it. 

For  these,  or  for  some  one  of  many  other  reasons, 
one  who  is  seriously  and  anxiously  trying  to  gain 
peace  with  God  may  desire  special  help  other  than 
that  of  the  larger  and  more  general  assurance  of  for- 
giveness in  Christ  and  at  least  at  some  time  in  his 
life,  or  at  some  important  turning  points,  may  need 


216  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  help  of  private  confession  and  absolution.  The 
unfortunate  fact  is  that  in  most  people  the  sense  of 
sin  has  fallen  to  a  very  low  level.  They  do  not  bother 
their  heads  about  it.  "Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead." 
"Why  worry?"  I  am  far  from  believing  in  frequent 
private  confession,  still  less  have  I  any  sympathy  with 
over-insistence  upon  it  as  a  prerequisite  to  Holy  Com- 
munion. My  own  pastoral  experience  has  proved  to 
me  that  sometimes  those  who  practise  it  are  by  no 
means  the  sturdiest  type  of  Christians.  But  I  do 
know  that  at  times  it  is  necessaiy.  Wide  experience 
has  taught  me  that  on  important  occasions,  at  least, 
it  is  a  blessing,  and  I  know  that  for  those  who  are 
preparing  for  confirmation  and  are  in  a  receptive  state 
it  has  immense  influence  in  deepening  their  sense 
of  sin,  their  assurance  of  pardon,  and  in  general  their 
consciousness  of  the  divine.  The  time  has  gone  by 
when  a  mere  word  about  confession  was  enough  to 
drive  people  crazy  who  saw  no  harm  in  a  secluded 
tete-a-tete  interview  between  the  pastor  and  a  member 
of  his  flock.  The  truth  is,  that  if  intercourse  of  this 
kind  is  to  be  allowed  it  is  much  safer  in  this  way 
than  in  any  other,  as  being  more  open  as  well  as 
surrounded  with  the  solemnities  of  religion. 

It  may  be  asked  whether  confession  is  really  a 
teaching  of  the  Anglican  Church.  In  that  case  we 
have  only  to  point  to  our  formularies.  In  the  form 
of  ordination  of  priests  in  the  Prayer  Book  we  find 
words  that  express  plainly  the  belief  that  though  God 
alone  forgives  sin.  He  uses  human  instruments  in 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  217 

doing  so.  "Receive  the  Holy  Ghost,"  the  bishop  says 
as  he  lays  his  hands  on  the  candidate,  "for  the  office 
and  work  of  a  priest  in  the  Church  of  God,  now  com- 
mitted unto  thee  by  the  imposition  of  our  hands. 
Whose  sins  thou  dost  forgive,  they  are  forgiven ;  and 
whose  sins  thou  dost  retain,  they  are  retained."  If 
a  communicant  cannot  quiet  his  own  conscience  and 
is  held  back  from  the  altar,  this  advice  is  given  in  the 
American  book:  "Let  him  come  to  me  or  to  some 
other  Minister  of  God's  Word  and  open  his  grief,  that 
he  may  receive  such  godly  counsel  and  advice  as  may 
tend  to  the  quieting  of  his  conscience  and  the  removal 
of  all  scruple  and  doubtfulness";  or,  as  the  English 
book  puts  it,  he  is  to  go  to  his  parish  priest,  "or  to 
some  other  discreet  and  learned  Minister  of  God's 
word  and  open  his  grief,  that  by  the  Ministry  of 
God's  Holy  Word  he  may  receive  the  benefit  of  abso- 
lution, together  with  ghostly  counsel  and  advice,  to 
the  quieting  of  his  conscience  and  avoiding  of  all 
scruple  and  doubtfulness."  In  our  Prayer  Book,  in 
the  office  of  visitation  of  prisoners,  the  priest  is 
directed  to  exhort  the  prisoner  "to  a  particular  con- 
fession of  the  sin  for  which  he  is  condemned"  and 
when  confession  has  been  made  "to  declare  to  him 
the  pardoning  mercy  of  God  in  the  form  which  is 
used  in  the  Communion  Service" ;  while  in  the  Eng- 
lish office  for  the  visitation  of  the  sick,  the  priest  is 
told  to  move  the  sick  person  to  "make  a  special  con- 
fession of  his  sins"  and  is  then  directed  to  absolve 
him  in  these  words:  "Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who 
hath  left  power  to  His  Church  to  absolve  all  sinners 


218  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

who  truly  repent  and  believe  in  Him,  of  His  great 
mercy  forgive  thee  thine  offences :  And  by  His  author- 
ity committed  to  me  I  absolve  thee  from  all  thy  sins, 
in  the  Name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.    Amen." 

There  is,  however,  an  immense  difference  between 
this  teaching  of  confession  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
method.  However  much  individual  priests  may  urge 
such  confession  and  assert  its  advantage  in  the  spir- 
itual life,  the  going  or  not  going  is  left  to  each  indi- 
vidual soul.  The  matter  is  to  be  one  of  personal 
choice  and  desire.  This  freedom  is  well  set  forth  in 
the  "Order  for  Communion"  published  by  authority 
in  the  English  Church  in  1548,  where  it  is  urged  that 
"such  as  shall  be  satisfied  with  a  general  confession 
be  not  offended  with  them  that  do  use,  to  their  further 
satisfying,  the  auricular  and  secret  confession  to  the 
priest;  nor  those  also  which  think  needful  and  con- 
venient, for  the  quietness  of  their  own  consciences, 
particularly  to  open  their  sins  to  the  priest,  to  be 
offended  with  them  that  are  satisfied  with  their  hum- 
ble confession  to  God,  and  the  general  confession  to 
the  Church.  But  in  all  things  to  follow  and  keep 
the  rule  of  charity;  and  every  man  to  be  satisfied 
with  his  own  conscience,  nor  judging  other  men's 
minds  or  conscience." 

If  we  are  ill,  we  do  not  go  to  a  medical  lecture 
and  then  endeavor,  on  the  information  received,  to 
diagnose  and  treat  our  own  case ;  we  visit  a  physician, 
tell  him  our  symptoms,  and  have  him  prescribe  for 
us.     If  we  are  spiritually  sick,  then,  why  should  we 


CONFESSION  AND  ABSOLUTION  219 

not  see  the  advantage  of  consulting  our  pastor  and 
seeking  his  personal  counsel,  instead  of  trusting  only 
to  the  help  of  sermons,  which  at  best  are  "medical 
lectures"  on  the  soul's  sickness  and  are  necessarily 
general  in  character? 

"Sin,''  says  Canon  McComb,"  "is  something  more 
than  an  unfortunate  slip,  a  foolish  mistake,  a  grave 
misfortune.  It  is  the  deliberate  setting  up  of  our 
wills  against  the  will  of  God.  It  is  not  an  accidental 
scar,  a  wart,  or  wen,  but  a  deep-seated  moral  disorder." 
"At  rare  moments  people  who  have  been  dissatisfied 
with  their  place,  or  with  their  work,  or  with  their 
income,  are  startled  with  a  deeper  thought — they  are 
dissatisfied  with  themselves.  This  is  not  a  sign  of 
morbidity.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  sign  of  life,  an 
indication  that  all  is  not  dead  within." 

Nor  has  this  chapter  been  an  unhealthy,  morbid 
discussion.  If  sin  is  a  serious  taint — a  real  disease — 
it  is  worth  while  to  ask  how  best  to  get  rid  of  it. 


*  God's  Meaning  in  Life. 


220  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXIV. 
THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHOOD 

IS  there  such  an  office  as  that  of  a  Christian  priest? 
Were  not  all  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices  fulfilled 
in  Christ?  Have  we  not  all  access  to  the  throne  of 
grace  through  His  blood?  What  need  of  priests  to 
stand  between  God  and  the  soul?  The  word  has 
fallen  into  such  bad  odor,  too !  It  arouses  prejudice 
and  has  a  hateful  sound  to  so  many  ears.  It  suggests 
selfishness  and  cunning,  hypocrisy  and  lies,  all  that 
is  embraced  in  the  popular  denunciation  of  "priest- 
craft". Yet,  there  is  the  name  in  the  Prayer  Book; 
there  it  is  in  the  Bible  applied  to  our  Lord  and  His 
work.  "I  will  raise  Me  up  a  faithful  priest."  "Thou 
art  a  priest  forever."  How  shall  we  redeem  the  word 
and  show  that  the  dignity  and  beauty  with  which 
Jesus  Christ  ennobled  it  are  carried  over  into  the 
work  of  His  servants  in  the  ministry  of  His  Church  ? 
What  do  we  mean  by  a  priest?  In  the  common 
conception  of  the  word,  he  is  one  who  offers  a  sacri- 
fice. We  may  include  in  it  also  a  service  man-ward. 
A  priest  is  one  who  makes  an  offering  to  God  and 
dispenses  God's  gifts  to  men. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHOOD  221 

First,  then,  we  must  ask  what  is  the  fundamental 
idea  of  sacrifice.  Essentially  sacrifice  is  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  will  to  Almighty  God.  The  ideal  of 
worship  is  this,  that  over  all  the  earth  men  shall  stand 
before  God  in  adoration,  with  words  like  these  on 
their  lips :  "Here  am  I ;  use  me.  All  that  I  am  and 
all  that  I  have  I  give  to  Thy  service.  Thou  hast 
made  me  for  Thyself;  I  dedicate  my  life  to  Thee, 
therefore,  I  offer  Thee  myself,  my  soul  and  body,  in 
love  and  gratitude,  to  do  Thy  will."  This  is  true 
sacrifice,  and  all  outward  sacrifices  are  but  symbols 
of  this  inner  reality. 

Because  man  has  sinned  he  has  never  been  able 
to  offer  this  perfect  oblation.  Yet,  just  because  he 
has  sinned  he  feels  the  greater  need  of  sacrifice,  not 
only  in  love  and  grateful  service  but  in  propitiation 
for  the  failures  of  the  past.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  world  more  pathetic  than  the  history  of  sacrificial 
worship :  men  presenting  their  gifts  to  God,  seeking 
for  some  adequate  offering  with  which  to  make  their 
peace  with  Him  and  so  take  up  their  right  position 
before  Him  once  more.  In  a  previous  chapter  we 
tried  to  show  something  of  what  that  sacrificial 
worship  was  and  how  it  kept  alive  the  sense  of  sin 
and  preserved  amid  many  distortions,  degradations, 
and  crude  exaggerations  the  perfect  ideal  of  sacri- 
fice. It  was  a  constant  reminder  that  something 
was  needed  before  God  could  find  satisfaction  in  His 
creation.  In  some  way  the  life  of  man  must  be  given 
to  God;  nothing  less  than  this  could  suffice  to  make 
God  and  man  at  one  again. 


222  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Never,  then,  had  a  true  sacrifice  been  offered  the 
Father  until  Jesus  Christ  the  perfect  Man,  as  the 
head  and  representative  of  the  race,  offered  Himself 
to  God.  Never  till  then  could  the  Father  forgive 
the  sins  of  men  without  compromising  His  holiness 
and  without  danger  of  serious  moral  misunderstand- 
ing. God  must  have  presented  before  Him  one  per- 
fect human  life,  an  offering  of  absolute  obedience  to 
His  holy  will.  This  offering  was  made  by  our  Lord 
Christ — not  simply  by  His  death,  but  in  His  life. 
The  sacrifice  of  the  cross  was  the  culmination  of  a 
life  of  sacrifice.  "I  came  to  do  Thy  will."  From 
the  moment  of  His  birth  our  Lord's  every  movement 
was  in  loving  submission  to  the  Father.  G^d  could 
now  look  on  earth  and  find  one  human  will  perfectly 
subordinated  to  His  own,  one  life  lived  in  complete 
obedience,  one  soul  bearing  patiently  every  trial  and 
temptation,  one  heart  absolutely  loyal  whatever  the 
end  might  be.  Through  misunderstanding  and  mis- 
representation, violence  and  hatred,  cruel  injustice 
and  oppression  and  at  length  even  in  death,  this 
Man  never  swerved  a  hair's  breadth  from  the  divine 
ideal  for  humanity.  And  now,  when  all  was  over 
and  mankind  in  Christ  had  at  last  proved  itself  pleas- 
ing in  God's  sight,  the  way  of  salvation  could  be 
opened  for  all. 

But  not  only  must  the  sacrifice  be  prepared,  it  must 
be  offered  and  pleaded  as  a  part  of  the  same  great  act. 
Here  we  are  carried  beyond  our  depth  into  a  realm  of 
mystery  where  it  is  difficult  to  find  a  sure  foothold, 
but  the  words  of  Scripture  make  us  confident  of  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHOOD  223 

great  fact  that  the  offering  begun  by  our  Lord  on 
earth  is  still  continued  and  that  in  the  heavenly 
places  His  presence  is  ever  pleading  the  merits  of 
His  perfect  oblation.  There  He  lifts  it  up  on  high. 
His  life,  His  entire  dedication  of  Himself  to  God,  His 
obedience  unto  death,  is  ever  present  before  the  Father 
as  the  ground  of  our  forgiveness  and  restoration  to 
the  divine  favor. 

Our  Lord  is  a  priest,  then,  our  great  High  Priest, 
because  He  offered  and  pleads  a  true  sacrifice. 

He  is  a  priest  also,  because  He  dispenses  God's 
gifts  to  men.  In  a  supreme  way  Jesus  Christ  does 
this.  He  brings  us  pardon,  grace,  and  blessing  from 
above;  He  ordains  means  by  which  divine  strength 
is  given  to  men;  in  Him  "dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of 
the  Godhead  bodily"  and  He  bestows  of  that  fulness 
to  men,  so  that  through  Him  the  very  life  of  God  is 
brought  to  them.  He  ministers  to  them  also  in  His 
life  of  service.  This  is  a  part  of  His  priestly  work, 
by  which  the  love  and  mercy  and  goodness  of  God 
are  made  real  to  men.  Service  such  as  His  is  in  its 
essence  priestly,  because  such  service  is  sacrificial, 
the  constant  giving  out  of  self,  the  spending  of  self, 
the  pouring  out  of  vital  strength  for  others  in  such 
fashion  that  many  times  "virtue"  must  have  "gone 
out  of  Him". 

Now  the  Church  represents  Christ  on  earth. 
Indeed,  so  real  is  its  inner  union  with  Him  that  we 
may  say  it  is  Christ  on  earth.  It  is  His  Body,  "the 
fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in  all."     And  there- 


224  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

fore,  if  Christ  is  a  priest  His  Church  is  also  priestly 
in  character.  "Ye  are  a  chosen  generation,  a  royal 
priesthood,"  are  words  used  of  the  Church.  "He 
hath  made  us  [the  members  of  His  Church]  kings 
and  priests  unto  God."  We  are  speaking  now  of  the 
whole  body  of  Christian  people.  We  are  all  priests, 
because  we  are  members  of  a  priestly  body,  the 
Church. 

In  what  does  this  priestly  character  of  the  Church 
consist?  First  of  all,  she  is  the  means  by  which 
our  Lord  dispenses  His  spiritual  gifts  to  men.  The 
Church  is  a  household  of  grace,  a  body  through  whose 
ordinances  we  are  brought  into  union  with  the  source 
of  all  spiritual  strength.  Again,  the  Church  has  a 
priesthood  of  service ;  in  works  of  charity  and  mercy, 
in  those  good  works  the  like  of  which  was  never 
known  till  the  Church  set  them  forth  however  imper- 
fectly, as  the  embodiment  of  the  mind  of  the  Master, 
in  the  thousand  and  one  ways  in  which  the  spirit  of 
Christ  is  manifested,  she  holds  up  His  life  before  men, 
so  that  the  remembrance  of  it  never  dies  out  of  the 
earth. 

And  then,  because  her  members  are  sinful  and 
weak  and  imperfect  and  so  her  self-dedication  can 
never  be  absolutely  realized,  she  pleads  the  merits  of 
the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Christ,  she  shelters  herself 
behind  it  as  she  lifts  it  up  to  God  in  the  constant 
offering  of  the  sacrament  which  He  instituted  in  the 
night  in  which  He  was  betrayed.  We  have  seen  how 
in  this  He  places  in  her  hands  that  very  life  which 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHOOD  225 

He  offers  in  heaven,  so  that  she,  too,  offers  and  pleads 
it  before  God. 

Look,  Father,  look  on  His  anointed  face. 
And  only  look  on  us  as  found  in  Him; 

Look  not  on  our  misusings  of  Thy  grace, 

Our  prayer  so  languid,  and  our  faith  so  dim; 

For  lo!  between  our  sins  and  their  reward, 

We  set  the  Passion  of  Thy  Son  our  Lord. 

If  we  realize  that  Jesus  Christ  is  even  now 
engaged  in  His  priestly  work,  that  it  is  an  essential 
element  in  His  sacrifice  that  His  blood  shall  not  only 
be  shed  but  shall  be  perpetually  offered,  we  shall 
see  that  when  the  Church  engages  in  that  divine  serv- 
ice wherein  she  makes  the  same  offering  her  work 
is  a  priestly  work. 

If  the  Church,  then,  is  priestly  in  character  her 
ministers  must  be  priests.  Although  the  whole  nation 
of  Israel  was  separated  to  God  to  be  a  "kingdom  of 
priests",  yet  certain  of  their  number,  members  of 
the  tribe  of  Levi,  were  called  out  and  set  apart  for  a 
peculiar  ministerial  priesthood.  They  acted  for  their 
brethren  in  making  offerings  to  God,  they  acted  for 
God  in  conveying  blessings  to  His  people.  Not  that 
they  were  in  any  sense  mediators  between  God  and 
men;  rather,  God  was  using  them  as  instruments 
through  whom  He  gave  gifts  to  their  brethren. 

What  is  true  of  Israel  is  true  also  of  the  Christian 
dispensation.  All  of  Christ's  people  are  "a  chosen 
generation,  a  royal  priesthood",  yet  certain  of  them 
are  called  to  a  special  and  peculiar  service,  a  minis- 
terial priesthood.     In  the  pleading  of  His  great  sac- 


226  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

rifice  they  act  for  their  brethren  by  His  appointment ; 
their  priesthood  is  not  something  which  simply 
inheres  in  their  "order",  it  is  the  expression  of  the 
priesthood  of  the  whole  body.  In  the  bestowal  of 
grace,  too,  their  ministry  is  priestly :  they  act  for  God, 
they  bless  in  His  name,  they  proclaim  with  authority 
His  pardon,  they  act  for  Him  in  the  bestowal  of  bap- 
tismal regeneration,  He  uses  them  in  feeding  His 
people  with  eucharistic  food.  It  is  no  more  remark- 
able that  our  spiritual  blessings  should  thus  come  to 
us  through  others  than  that  our  natural  blessings 
should  be  given  through  parents  or  friends.^  The  life 
comes  no  less  from  God  because  it  comes  through  the 
instrumentality  of  human  parentage;  the  food  is  no 
less  given  by  Him  because  others  have  their  part  in 
providing  for  the  growing  child;  the  kindly  care  and 
education  are  no  less  a  blessing  from  above  because 
kinsfolk  and  teachers  have  been  used  in  imparting 
them.  So  the  baptismal  birth,  the  sevenfold  gift  of 
the  Spirit,  the  grace  of  absolution,  the  strengthening 
food  of  the  Eucharist  come  from  God,  though  God 
chooses  to  use  human  agents  in  bestowing  them. 
Perhaps  He  confers  both  gifts — the  physical  and  the 
spiritual — through  these  channels,  that  so  the  whole 
race  may  be  bound  together  in  love  and  thus  we  find 
the  explanation  of  the  ministerial  priesthood  in  the 


^  See  Gore:  The  Religion  of  the  Church,  page  160:  "Is 
any  spiritual  power  that  a  man  can  exercise  so  porten- 
tously great  or  so  fundamental  as  the  power  to  bring  into 
the  world  an  immortal  soul?  Does  any  power  claimed  for 
any  priesthood  equal  this?" 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHCXDD  227 

thought  of  the  close  union  of  Christ's  people  through 
the  bond  that  unites  them  to  one  another  by  reason 
of  their  union  with  Him. 

Now  for  the  basis  of  this  ministerial  priesthood. 
Let  us  go  back  to  the  conception  of  the  Church  as 
the  Body  of  Christ.  In  this  body  we  are  set  as  mem- 
bers. God  hath  appointed  the  members  every  one  of 
them  in  the  body  as  it  hath  pleased  Him.  In  this 
body  we  live  together  in  the  Spirit,  with  diversities 
of  gifts  and  differences  of  administrations — just  as 
in  the  natural  body  the  different  members  have  each 
their  separate  labor,  the  head,  the  hand,  the  foot,  the 
ear,  the  eye,  each  performing  its  own  work  to  the 
upbuilding  of  the  whole  body. 

Bearing  in  mind  this  thought  of  the  Church  as 
the  Body  of  Christ  and  ourselves  as  members  of  the 
body,  we  see  the  place  of  the  Christian  priesthood, 
as  an  organ  of  the  body  to  perform  one  of  its  func- 
tions. The  ministerial  priesthood  is  the  arm  of  the 
Church.  God  would  not  have  the  Church's  work 
carried  on  at  haphazard.  There  is  a  fixed  and  care- 
fully arranged  organization,  with  members  set  apart 
for  each  particular  work.  The  various  functions  of 
the  Church  are  not  left  to  the  chance  administration 
of  self-chosen  agents,  there  is  a  certain  and  definite 
rule  according  to  which  some  of  the  members  of  the 
body  are  appointed  to  offer  the  Church's  sacrifice  and 
to  dispense  her  gifts  of  grace  as  the  mouthpiece  and 
representative  of  the  whole  membership.  The  clergy 
are  members  of  the  Church  in  the  same  sense  in  which 


228  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  laity  are  members;  their  priesthood  and  ministry 
are  representative  and  they  are  in  no  sense  mediators 
between  God  and  men.^ 

May  we  not  carry  the  conception  of  Christ's 
priesthood  into  the  pastoral  work  and  Christian  service 
of  the  Church  and  her  ministers  ?  We  must  be  careful 
lest  we  base  our  idea  of  priesthood  only  in  the  doing 
of  something.  Priesthood  goes  deeper  than  that;  it 
must  include  the  being  something.  Our  Lord's  priest- 
hood was  more  fundamental  than  that  of  the  Levitical 
ministry ;  it  was  in  His  being  and  nature.  He  was  a 
priest  not  only  because  of  what  He  did,  but  because 
of  what  He  was.  So  it  does  seem  that  the  priesthood 
of  the  Church  and  that  of  her  ministry  must  be  a 
priesthood  of  sacrifice  and  service,  the  giving  of  life 
as  a  ransom  for  many,  the  utter  dedication  of  self  for 
the  good  of  others.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  as 
this  priesthood  of  service  is  more  widely  recognized 
in  us  by  the  world  the  priesthood  of  offering  will  also 
be  readily  accepted.  Men  rebel  at  the  one,  because  it 
seems  mechanical  when  dissevered  from  the  other. 

A  firm  grasp  on  the  essential  principle  of  the 
priesthood  here  set  forth  will  lead  us  to  honor  God's 
ministry  with  greater  reverence  than  do  those  who 


'  It  seems  to  me  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  any  middle 
ground  between  this  theory  of  the  ministry  as  having  special 
office  and  function  in  the  Church  and  the  extreme  opposite 
view  which  discards  the  idea  of  a  ministry  as  in  any  way 
essential  and  merely  places  certain  men  over  a  congrega- 
tion for  convenience  of  administration  and  worship.  See 
Campbell:  A  Spiritual  Pilgrimage,  especially  chapter  xi. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  PRIESTHOOD  229 

think  of  the  clergy  simply  as  teachers  and  preachers; 
none  the  less  will  it  lead  us  to  honor  the  place  of  lay- 
men in  the  Church.  Too  often  we  regard  lay  mem- 
bership as  a  negative  thing.  Laymen  are  simply  all 
those  who  are  not  priests.  Our  present  way  of  look- 
ing at  the  subject  will  teach  us  that  laymen  have  a 
positive  office.  We  are  not  to  shift  upon  the  shoulders 
of  the  minister  all  responsibility  for  the  work  of  the 
parish  and  leave  him  to  labor  alone  for  the  salvation 
of  souls,  supposing  that  the  only  duty  of  laymen  is 
to  furnish  the  money  to  support  the  offices  of  religion ! 
The  true  layman  feels  that  he  has  a  service  to  perform 
which  is  just  as  real  as  that  of  the  priest  at  the  altar. 
God  hasten  the  day  when  the  laity  may  fully  appre- 
ciate their  privilege,  in  worship,  in  service,  in  labor 
for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom !  St.  Paul  mag- 
nified his  office.  The  clergy  of  to-day,  if  they  under- 
stand their  priestly  responsibility,  will  magnify  theirs, 
not  in  a  spirit  of  class  pride  and  impatience  of  inter- 
ference from  the  laity  but  in  St.  PauFs  spirit  of  awe 
at  the  greatness  of  his  vocation.  May  the  laity  also, 
without  detracting  from  the  ministerial  priesthood, 
magnify  their  place,  too,  as  co-workers  with  their 
pastors  in  the  household  of  God. 


230  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXIV. 
THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION 

GOD  is  a  God  of  order.  In  nature  He  leaves  noth- 
ing to  chance,  He  works  by  law.  We  have  seen 
that  in  the  Church  also  there  is  a  fixed  and  definite 
rule  by  which  certain  functions  of  the  body  are 
assigned  to  the  ministerial  priesthood. 

This  thought  of  the  orderliness  of  God's  working 
in  the  Church  will  explain  the  law  of  succession  in 
the  ministry.  When  it  was  stated  that  the  clergy  of 
the  Church  have  a  representative  priesthood  it  was  not 
meant  that  their  powers  were  derived  from  the  body; 
the  authority  comes  from  God  and  is  exercised  only 
by  His  appointment.  While,  of  course,  the  whole 
body  of  the  faithful  have  a  responsibility  in  the  selec- 
tion and  appointment  of  the  clergy,  the  authority  by 
which  they  act  and  the  powers  they  exercise  must 
come  from  God.  He  only  can  commission  them.  The 
authority  could  not  come  from  the  members  of  the 
body,  because  no  one  can  confer  a  power  which  is 
greater  than  he  himself  possesses. 

It  would  appear  from  Scripture  and  continuous 
Church  custom  and  tradition  that  this  commission 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  231 

from  God  includes  not  merely  the  minister's  belief 
that  he  has  received  a  divine  call,  but  evidence  that 
he  has  been  set  apart  and  ordained  for  his  work  in  a 
divinely  appointed  way.  This  is  necessary  in  order 
that  those  to  whom  he  ministers,  as  well  as  he  him- 
self, may  have  the  assurance  of  his  divine  commission. 
An  inner  call  might  be  enough  for  him;  others,  how- 
ever, can  know  nothing  about  this.  In  addition  to 
this  call  there  must  be  the  regularity  of  appointment 
as  pledging  for  them  the  validity  of  his  ministrations. 

If  the  sacraments  of  the  Church  are  mere  symbols, 
it  is  of  little  importance  who  administers  them,  or 
how  they  are  administered.  A  dramatic  and  pictur- 
esque presentation  of  spiritual  truth  may  well  vary 
in  method  to  suit  the  age  or  the  race.  It  would  make 
little  difference  who  were  the  actors  in  the  drama. 
But  if  the  sacraments  are  actually  means  of  con- 
veying life — outward  and  visible  signs  of  inward 
and  spiritual  grace;  channels  through  which  grace 
is  received-^then  it  would  seem  only  reasonable  that 
there  should  be  safeguards  for  their  regular  and  valid 
celebration.  It  has  been  pointed  out  by  an  able  and 
devoted  Anglican  writer,  who  has  great  respect  for 
the  Protestant  position  and  has  sought  faithfully  to 
interpret  Protestant  thought,  that  belief  in  a  sacra- 
mental presence  and  gift  and  belief  in  a  sacramental 
ministry  have  always  gone  together.  "Wherever  the 
apostolic  ministry  has  been  rejected  the  sacramental 
belief  has  failed.  Wherever  belief  in  a  sacramental 
gift  has  been  weakened  episcopacy  has  been  defended 


232  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

merely  as  a  convenience  or  compromised  as  a  question 
of  minor  importance." 

This  is  the  point  upon  which  stress  is  laid  by 
Dr.  Campbell;,  the  great  English  Nonconformist  who 
recently  received  orders  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Church 
of  England.  "I  cannot  see  how  it  can  fairly  be  dis- 
puted," he  says,  "that  among  early  Christians  the 
Church  was  always  regarded  as  a  mystical  unity,  an 
earthly  sodality  with  a  super-earthly  source  and  sanc- 
tion, an  order  permeated  and  sustained  by  a  super- 
natural life.  It  was  not  a  human  institution,  a  club, 
a  guild,  a  voluntary  association  of  believers  in  a  com- 
mon cause."  And  he  continues:  "Can  nothing  be 
done  to  rescue  the  Christianity  of  the  present-day 
English-speaking  world  from  the  calamitous  error 
that  it  is  only  a  set  of  views  to  be  promulgated — and 
a  more  or  less  incoherent  and  unstable  set  of  views  at 
that — and  not  a  life  to  be  lived  in  corporate  and 
immediate  fellowship  with  another  and  higher  world 
than  that  of  our  every  day  perceptions?  This  is 
practically  the  whole  issue  between  sacramental  and 
non-sacramental  religion  as  it  confronts  us  just 
now." ' 

Nor  is  that  all.  The  heart  of  Christianity  is  long- 
ing, with  a  great  yearning,  for  the  healing  of  its 
unhappy  divisions  and  the  restoration  of  a  visible 
unity.  We  are  seeing,  as  we  never  saw  before,  the 
evils  of  division.     The  war  especially  has  revealed 


^See  A  Spiritual  Pilgrimage,  page  270;  also  (quoted  by 
Campbell)  Kelly:  The  Church  and  Religious  Unity,  page 
147. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  233 

the  weakness  of  a  disrupted  Christendom.  Men  who 
never  till  now  have  realized  clearly  the  need  of  unity, 
are  praying  for  it,  working  for  it,  planning  for  it, 
anxiously  awaiting  signs  of  its  approach.  Now  it 
seems  to  me  quite  evident  that  the  principle  of  succes- 
sion in  the  ministry  is  a  necessary  element  in  the 
idea  of  a  visible  Church  permanently  knit  into  a 
visible  unity.  "If  there  is  one  Church,  one  visible 
society,  to  which  all  who  are  Christ's  must  belong, 
it  must  be  made  manifest  where  that  Church  is  to  be 
found.  Continuity  of  doctrine  is  a  great  thing,  but 
it  is  not  enough.  There  must  also  be  continuity  of 
persons.  Otherwise  any  group  of  dissatisfied  individ- 
uals may  go  off  by  themselves  and  still  say,  *We  are 
the  Church.' " ' 

Were  unity  secured,  therefore,  it  could  not  long 
continue  without  the  ministry  of  unity  to  preserve  it. 
The  one  ministry  is  centripetal,  varieties  of  ministry 
necessarily  centrifugal.  The  greatest  possible  bond  of 
unity  is  to  be  found  in  the  one  authoritative  ministry 
locally  adapted,  working  in  a  Church  where  there  is 
not  only  room  but  welcome  for  many  varieties  of 
thought  and  worship.  If  I  may  be  allowed  a  homely 
illustration,  we  have  an  example  of  the  possibility  of 
such  unity  in  variety  in  a  Church  which  has  succeeded 
in  holding  together  in  loyal  membership  High,  Low, 
Catholic,  Broad,  Evangelical,  Sacramentalist — each 
emphasizing  one  part  of  the  many-sided  truth  yet 
none  impelled  to  destroy  the  unity  of  the  body  in 
order  to  strengthen  its  own  teaching,  each  free  to  hold 

*  Gore :  The  Religion  of  the  Church,  page  65. 


234  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

its  cherished  truth  and  yet,  through  necessary  contact 
with  other  truth,  saved  from  wholly  succumbing  to 
the  heresy  of  the  partial  and  fragmentary. 

This  is  the  position  to  which  a  group  of  modern 
writers  have  arrived  after  an  examination  of  the  ques- 
tions which  "gather  round  the  origin  and  early  devel- 
opment of  episcopacy  [that  is  a  ministry  through 
bishops]  and  the  nature  and  degree  of  the  authority 
which  it  possesses.  It  is  the  position  stated  explicitly 
and  with  unusual  clearness  by  one  of  the  writers,  Dr. 
Armitage  Robinson.  "It  is  for  the  unity  of  the 
whole,"  he  says,  "that  the  historic  three-fold  ministry 
stands.  It  grew  out  of  the  need  for  preservation  of 
unity  when  the  apostles  themselves  were  withdrawn. 
It  is,  humanly  speaking,  inconceivable  that  unity  can 
be  reestablished  on  any  other  basis.  This  is  not  to 
say  that  a  particular  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession 
must  needs  be  held  by  all  Christians  alike.  But  the 
principle  of  transmission  of  ministerial  authority 
makes  for  unity,  while  the  view  that  ministry  origi- 
nates afresh  at  the  behest  of  a  particular  Church  or 
congregation  makes  for  division  and  subdivision.  We 
have  the  happiness  to  live  in  days  in  which  a  reaction 
has  set  in  against  the  long  process  of  the  division  and 
subdivision  of  Christendom.  Earnest  spirits  every- 
where around  us  are  yearning  after  unity.  On  a 
reasonable  interrogation  of  history  the  principle  can 
be  seen  to  emerge  that  ministry  was  the  result  of 
commission  from  those  who  had  themselves  received 
authority  to  transmit  it.  In  other  words  we  are 
compelled  to  the  recognition  that,  at  least  for  the 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  235 

purposes  of  unity,  the  episcopate  is  the  successor  of 
the  apostolate/' 

It  is,  then,  the  law  of  the  orderliness  of  God^s 
working  which  explains  the  law  of  succession  in  the 
ministry.  We  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  came  on  earth 
to  found  a  Church.  We  believe  that  His  apostles 
were  its  first  ministers.  They,  under  instructions 
from  Him,  organized  its  government.  He  had  prom- 
ised to  be  with  them  always  and  so  they  ordained 
others  as  their  successors,  in  whom  this  promise  was 
to  be  fulfilled. 

It  is  perfectly  plain  that  at  first  only  those  who 
had  been  ordained  by  the  apostles  could  take  the  office 
of  the  ministry.  By  and  by  we  see  the  apostles  con- 
secrating others  to  whom  is  given  this  power  of  ordi- 
nation, so  that  during  the  life  time  of  the  apostles  we 
find  three  orders  of  the  ministry  established:  (1)  The 
lowest  order,  who  were  called  deacons  and  were  given 
authority  to  preach  and  baptize;  (2)  another  order, 
who  were  called  presbyters  and  who  not  only  per- 
formed the  duties  of  the  minor  office,  but  were  in 
charge  of  congregations  and  celebrated  the  Holy 
Eucharist;  (3)  a  third  order  called  apostles,  who 
besides  doing  all  that  has  been  enumerated  had  the 
oversight  of  the  churches  and  ordained  and  conse- 
crated to  the  ministry.  Such  were  Timothy,  Titus, 
and  others.  As  yet  the  name  "bishop"  is  given  indis- 
criminately either  to  those  of  the  apostolic  order  or 
to  the  presbyters;  gradually,  however,  out  of  honor 
to  the  original  Twelve,  the  name  apostle  was  dropped 


236  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

as  the  designation  of  the  highest  order  and  the  title 
bishop  was  reserved  for  them  alone  and  was  no  longer 
applied  to  the  second  order. 

These  bishops  (or  apostles)  have  consecrated 
others  and  they  in  turn  still  others,  so  that  the  line 
has  come  down  to  the  present  day.  The  succession 
from  the  apostles  has  never  failed,  and  the  three 
orders  have  never  ceased.  The  three  great  branches 
of  the  Church  Catholic,  the  Eastern,  the  Roman,  and 
the  Anglican  (which  includes  the  American  Episcopal 
Church)  have  this  apostolic  ministry;  the  Protestant 
Churches  have  dispensed  with  it.  Most  of  them  say 
that  it  is  unnecessary ;  some,  like  the  "High  Church" 
Presbyterians  and  the  Lutherans,  claim  to  have  a 
"presbyterial  succession"  —  that  is,  a  succession 
through  presbyters,  the  second  order  of  the  ministry. 

The  history  of  the  way  in  which  the  ministry  of 
the  later  Church  emerged  out  of  the  apostolic  minis- 
try cannot  be  exactly  traced,  but  recent  searching 
examination  into  the  whole  question  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  the  episcopate  has  distinctly  strength- 
ened the  traditional  view  and  illuminated  the  essen- 
tial principles,  even  though  modifying  some  former 
conceptions.  It  is  good  to  find  that  modern  contro- 
versy has  at  least  led  to  restatements  of  the  whole 
subject,  so  that  the  historic  episcopate  is  no  longer 
defended  merely  as  a  mechanical  succession  through 
a  tactual  act,  the  laying  on  of  hands,  but  is  urged  as 
embodying  the  principle  of  continuity  with  the  past, 
as  expressing  the  idea  of  an  authority  wider  than  that 
of  any  local  or  national  Church,  as  magnifying  the 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  237 

office  rather  than  the  man,  and  as  being  "of  a  piece" 
with  the  very  idea  of  a  sacramental  religion. 

These  considerations  will  make  it  easier  to  meet 
the  three  objections  to  the  apostolic  theory  of  the 
ministry  which  are  commonly  urged  here  in  America. 

(1)  First,  there  are  those  who  deny  that  the 
Anglican,  or  the  Episcopal,  Church  has  the  apostolic 
succession.  Eoman  Catholics  deny  the  claim  and 
assert  that  to  them  alone  is  due  the  allegiance  of  Eng- 
lish-speaking Christians  as  having  a  valid  ministry. 
What  we  claim,  and  what  history  proves,  is  that  at  the 
Eeformation  the  English  Church  preserved  absolutely 
her  connection  with  the  past.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
go  into  the  case  in  detail  here,  because  so  many  books 
and  pamphlets  on  the  subject  have  been  published 
that  no  one  need  be  at  a  loss  for  the  facts. '  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  Anglican  Church 
traces  her  life  back  to  the  apostles.  With  her  the 
Reformation  was  a  "reform  within  the  Church"  and 
differed  radically  from  the  secession  and  revolt  on  the 
continent.  When  the  storm  was  over  only  177  out  of 
the  9,400  clergy  refused  to  conform  to  the  new  order ; 
one  of  the  popes  offered  to  accept  the  Prayer  Book 
with  all  its  changes,  if  the  queen  [Elizabeth]  would 
acknowledge  his  supremacy,  and,  in  short,  there  is 
abundant  evidence  of  the  care  with  which  the  old 
ministry  was  continued  through  Parker  and  his  con- 


^  See,  for  example,  the  latest  edition  of  Little's  standard 
work,  Reasons  for  Being  a  Churchman,  or  chapters  in  the 
late  Bishop  Grafton's  book,  Christian  and  Catholic. 


238  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

temporaries  and  successors  and  of  the  entire  satisfac- 
toriness  of  the  form  of  consecration  by  which  they 
were  ordained.  In  England,  after  the  Reformation, 
the  Church  remained  the  same  catholic  and  apostolic 
body  she  had  always  been;  she  retained  the  bishops 
and  the  priesthood,  the  ancient  creeds  and  the  catholic 
faith  and  sacraments.  She  rejected  the  claim  of  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  to  be  the  head  of  the  Church,  the 
source  of  jurisdiction  and  the  arbiter  of  doctrine; 
she  removed  abuses,  guarded  against  popular  errors, 
returned  to  the  primitive  custom  of  administering 
the  Holy  Communion,  and  restored  the  service  to  the 
people  by  saying  it  in  a  language  they  could  under- 
stand, but  she  made  no  change  which  involved  a  loss 
of  her  Catholic  heritage.  "The  separation  was  from 
Rome  as  a  court  claiming  jurisdiction  over  England, 
not  from  Rome  in  any  point  of  faith  or  order  that  had 
been  ruled  upon  by  the  Church  Universal." 

(2)  Again,  the  Churchman  must  meet  the  Pres- 
byterian claim  to  an  apostolic  succession  through  the 
second  order  of  the  ministry.  Protestants  generally 
regard  the  whole  conception  of  the  "validity  of  orders" 
as  unmeaning,  but  the  so-called  "High  Church"  party, 
especially  Scotch  Presbyterians,  are  an  exception  to 
this  position.  It  is  their  claim  we  are  now  consider- 
ing. The  assertion  that  presbyters  had  the  power  of 
ordination  rests  upon  the  weakest  possible  foundation 
— a  few  obscure  passages  in  the  fathers,  notably  one 
of  St.  Jerome,  and  some  instances  of  supposed  presby- 
terial  ordination  as  exceptions  to  an  admitted  general 
rule,  such  as  (for  example)  the  custom  of  Alexandria. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  239 

Every  one  of  these  cases,  however,  may  be  explained 
quite  as  naturally  on  the  Episcopal  theory  as  on  the 
Presbyterian  and  over  against  them  is  an  overwhelm- 
ing preponderance  of  testimony  as  to  the  world-wide 
acceptance  of  the  episcopate  as  the  ordaining  body. 
As  soon  as  the  Church  emerges  out  of  the  sub- 
apostolic  age,  we  find  that  the  episcopate  is  every-- 
where  established,  with  episcopal  ordination  the 
universal  rule.  Is  it  not  the  height  of  absurdity,  if 
Episcopacy  is  found  without  an  exception  by  the 
middle  of  the  second  century,  to  suppose  that 
it  supplanted  a  Presbyterianism  of  the  preceding 
period?  Imagine  the  change  being  made  in  that 
short  time  from  one  form  of  government  to  another 
and  yet  history  proving  absolutely  silent  as  to  any  pro- 
test, in  any  Church,  from  any  presbyter  whose  rights 
had  been  so  ruthlessly  trampled  upon !  Scripture  and 
history  alike  must  have  curious  interpretations  read 
into  them  to  show  the  faintest  evidence  that  any  but 
a  Bishop  or  Apostle  ever  had  authority  to  ordain  in 
the  Church  of  God. 

(3)  Finally,  we  shall  be  met  by  an  appeal  to  senti- 
ment from  those  who  care  nothing  about  the  apos- 
tolic succession  and  regard  the  whole  matter  with 
indifference,  usually  with  supercilious  indifference. 
"Your  claim,"  they  say,  "simply  unchurches  all  other 
Christian  bodies  and  invalidates  their  ministry. 
Deliver  me  from  any  theory  which  says  that  nobody 
outside  the  Church  can  be  saved,  which  then  confines 
the  Church  within  the  limits  of  one  or  two  com- 
munions and  will  not  recognize  the  work  of  the  godly 


240  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ministers  of  other  denominations,  because,  forsooth, 
they  have  been  ordained  by  a  slightly  different  method 
from  that  of  your  own  body." 

The  general  answer  to  these  several  charges  is, 
They  simply  are  not  true : 

It  is  not  true,  for  example,  that  we  think  no  one 
can  be  saved  outside  the  Church.  We  do  believe 
that  God  has  promised  salvation  through  our  Lord 
Christ;  we  do  believe  that  Christ  left  the  Church  to 
bring  this  salvation  to  men  and  therefore  we  plead 
with  men  to  listen  to  our  message.  In  other  words, 
we  believe  that  the  Church  is  the  normal  and  cov- 
enanted way  of  salvation.  But  it  is  far  from  our 
thought  to  tie  God  down  to  this  one  method  of  bring- 
ing men  to  Him.  We  believe  that  He  has  promised 
life  to  those  who  accept  it  in  this  way;  but  we  do 
not  think  for  a  moment  that  He  may  not  have  other 
ways  of  accomplishing  the  same  work. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  we  confine  the  Church  to  our 
own  communion.  It  has  been  explained  in  a  previous 
chapter  that  the  organization  of  the  Catholic  Church 
is  that  which  is  administered  by  bishops  who  are 
charged  with  our  Lord's  commission ;  but  its  memher- 
ship  includes  all  baptized  persons,  whether  they  be 
Greeks,  Roman,  Anglican,  or  Protestants.  Nobody 
denies  that  Christ  has  faithful,  loving  servants  in 
every  denomination,  nor  does  anyone  deny  that  what 
they  are  and  what  they  do  is  the  result  of  the  grace 
they  receive  from  Him.  I  do  not  know  where  this 
has  been  stated  more  clearly  than  by  Bishop  Gore :  * 

*  The  Religion  of  the  Church,  page  156-7. 


THE  APOSTOLIC  SUCCESSION  241 

'^e  know  quite  well  how  the  Nonconformist  bodies 
in  England  grew  up.  We  know  quite  well  under  what 
conditions  they  have  been  recruited  and  gained  their 
strength.  It  has  been  largely,  at  least,  because  of  our 
failure  to  be  what  a  Church  ought  to  be.  We  have 
by  our  sins  and  shortcomings  supplied  them  with 
only  too  much  excuse  for  separation.  It  will  there- 
fore cause  us  the  less  surprise  to  find  tokens  of  the 
action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  most  plainly  among  them, 
not  only  among  those  who  in  virtue  of  baptism  are 
individually  members  of  the  Church,  but  quite  as 
obviously  among  the  Quakers  and  elsewhere  where 
baptism  is  rejected.  I  am  sure  we  ought  to  recognize, 
as  frankly  as  possible,  that  God  has  been  pleased  to 
work  with  a  full  measure  of  His  grace  far  beyond 
all  normal  channels  and  laws  of  validity.  I  trust  that 
the  attitude  of  contempt  which  is  so  common  in 
Komanists  towards  us  and  has  been  so  common  in 
Anglicans  towards  Nonconformists  will  become  very 
rapidly  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  trust  we  shall  learn  to 
hold  with  them  the  fullest  measure  of  Christian 
fellowship  which  we  can  hold  without  faithlessness 
to  the  principles  we  stand  for." 

The  Anglican  Church  has  never  pronounced  the 
sacraments  or  orders  of  others  invalid.  She  simply 
declares  that  "it  is  evident  to  all  men,  diligently  read- 
ing Holy  Scripture  and  the  ancient  authors,  that  from 
the  Apostles'  time  there  have  been  these  orders  of 
ministers  in  Christ's  Church,  Bishops,  Priests,  and 
Deacons",  and  she  preserves  the  apostolic  method  by 
providing  that  none  but  those  having  episcopal  ordi- 


242  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

nation  shall  minister  at  her  altars,  but  she  nowhere 
requires  the  rejection  of  speculative  opinions  about 
the  validity  of  any  other  orders  than  these,  in  the 
stress  of  later  difficulties.  We  are  not  harshly  con- 
demning others.  It  is  simply  a  question  on  our  part 
of  preserving  what  we  believe  to  be  the  institution  of 
Christ's  apostles.  "We  do  not  presume,"  said  the  late 
Bishop  Lightfoot,  "to  pass  any  judgment  on  Chris- 
tian communities  differently  organized  than  ourselves. 
Our  plain  duty  is  to  guard  faithfully  what  has  been 
committed  to  us  and  leave  others  to  Him  who  judgeth 
righteously."  If  sometimes  we  may  appear  to  be 
overzealous  in  guarding  this  trust,  it  is  because  in 
this  ministry  and  in  this  alone  can  we  see  hope  of 
a  permanent  Christian  unity  which  shall  include 
not  merely  Protestantism,  but  Eoman  and  Eastern 
Christianity  as  well. 

Bless,  0  Lord,  we  beseech  Thee,  Thy  Holy  Cath- 
olic Church ;  fill  it  with  truth  and  grace ;  where  it  is 
corrupt,  purge  it ;  where  it  is  in  error,  direct  it ;  where 
it  is  superstitious,  rectify  it ;  where  it  is  amiss,  reform 
it;  where  it  is  right,  strengthen  and  confirm  it;  where 
it  is  divided  and  rent  asunder,  heal  the  breaches 
thereof,  0  Thou  Holy  One  of  Israel  :  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 


CONFIRMATION  AND  OTHER  SACRAMENTS    243 


XXVI. 
CONFIRMATION  AND  OTHER  SACRAMENTS 

CONFIRMATION  has  sometimes  been  called  the 
ordination  of  the  laity.  Most  Churchmen  believe 
that  the  laying  on  of  hands  brings  some  special  grace 
to  those  who  have  been  called  to  the  clerical  life  and 
would  serve  God  in  the  ministry  of  the  Church.  How- 
ever one  may  emphasize  the  need  of  an  inward  call, 
the  subsequent  ordination  must  be  regarded  as  a 
solemn  and  impressive  ceremony,  a  means  of  convey- 
ing grace  for  a  high  calling  and  not  simply  a  formal 
setting  apart  for  service.  Almost  anyone  who  has 
any  conception  of  sacramental  grace  in  baptism  or 
Holy  Communion  will  believe  at  least  this  much 
about  ordination. 

Now  what  ordination  is  to  the  clergyman  con- 
firmation is  to  the  layman.  We  have  seen  that  there 
is  a  ministry  of  the  laity  as  well  as  of  the  clergy. 
Let  us  ask  now  what  our  idea  of  the  ministerial  office 
is.  We  Churchmen  think  of  it  as  a  priesthood — and 
what  has  been  said  will  show  that  we  need  not  be 
afraid  of  the  word; — and  our  conception  of  the  office 
is  that  of  one  who  acts  toward  God  for  men  and 


244  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

toward  men  for  God.  Yet,  however  highly  we  es- 
teem this  priestly  office,  we  have  seen  that  back  of  it 
is  the  general  priesthood  of  the  whole  body  of  the 
faithful.  In  the  Eucharist,  for  example,  the  priest 
pleads  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  as  he  lifts  up  the  sacred 
elements,  but  he  does  so  as  the  agent  and  represent- 
ative of  the  Church:  the  Eucharist  is  a  corporate 
service,  and  what  is  done  is  done  in  the  name  of  the 
body — we  offer,  we  present.  The  ministerial  priest- 
hood is  the  expression  of  the  general  priesthood. 

Or  one  may  think  of  the  ministry  rather  as  a 
spiritual  leadership,  the  clergyman  being  the  head 
of  the  congregation  and  their  mouthpiece  in  offering 
the  prayers  of  the  Church:  but  here,  again,  there  is 
a  lay  ministry  of  leadership,  as  (to  take  an  instance) 
in  the  family  priesthood,  where  in  the  common 
prayers,  in  the  grace  at  meals  and  in  the  exercise  of 
all  that  is  involved  in  the  religious  life  of  the  home 
the  father  holds  powers  which  descend  to  him  from 
patriarchal  times,  gaining  new  sanction  and  authority 
in  our  risen  life  in  Christ. 

Or,  if  we  think  of  the  ministry  as  a  Christian 
service  and  of  those  who  are  called  to  holy  orders  as 
being  dedicated  to  a  life  of  labor  for  their  fellow- 
men,  here  most  of  all  there  is  a  lay  ministry — the  min- 
istry of  individual  service  for  God,  such  service  as 
works  and  prays  for  the  spread  of  Christ's  kingdom 
and  constantly  ministers  to  the  uplifting  of  those  one 
meets  in  the  frequent  intercourse  of  the  ordinary, 
every-day  life.  This  conception  of  what  has  been 
called  the  priesthood  of  the  laity  emphasizes,  too,  the 


CONFIRMATION  AND  OTHER  SACRAMENTS    245 

thought  that  all  of  life  is  sacred,  so  that  for  the 
Christian  it  may  be  said  that  the  line  between  things 
secular  and  things  religious  is  abolished.  Every  part 
of  home  and  business  and  social  life  is  to  be  pen- 
etrated with  religion  and  a  man's  ordinary  occupation 
is  to  become  his  "vocation".  There  was  a  time  when 
one's  trade  or  profession  or  business  was  spoken  of  as 
one's  "calling"  and  it  would  be  well  to  get  the  name 
back  as  a  reminder  that  the  man  in  the  pew  is  as 
truly  a  minister  of  God,  though  not  in  the  same  office, 
as  the  priest  at  the  altar. 

It  is  but  a  natural  step  from  this  thought  of  the 
sacredness  of  life  to  that  of  a  corresponding  grace 
that  shall  fit  us  for  its  duties.  So  we  find  in  the 
special  gift  of  confirmation  a  full  and  free  outpouring 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  enable  us  to  live  a  life  of 
Christian  service.  The  Church  leads  her  own  chil- 
dren to  confirmation  and  asks  others  who  come  into 
her  fold  to  enter  in  this  way,  because  the  ordinance 
is  one  of  such  deep  and  solemn  meaning.  It  is  not 
a  bare  form  or  ceremony,  nor  is  it  merely  an  occasion 
for  the  public  reiteration  and  assumption  of  bap- 
tismal vows.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  anything  that  we  do, 
so  much  as  it  is  something  that  God  does — He 
strengthens.  He  confirms,  He  bestows  the  sevenfold 
gift  of  the  Spirit  for  the  labor  of  life.  It  is  the 
bestowal  of  the  fulness  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  fit  men 
for  a  holy  calling.  We  do  not  exaggerate  its  im- 
portance, therefore,  when  we  go  so  far  as  to  say  that 
it  is  the  ordination  of  the  laity.  Just  as  the  clergy- 
man must  be  consecrated  and  set  apart  and  by  the 


246  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

laying  on  of  hands  receive  grace  for  his  work,  so  the 
layman  must  be  endowed  for  his.  To  live  in  the 
world  and  yet  not  be  of  it;  in  the  midst  of  so  many 
and  great  dangers  and  temptations  to  hold  always  for 
the  truth ;  in  business,  in  the  office,  in  the  shop,  or  the 
household,  to  show  forth  God's  glory;  so  to  act  that 
others  may  be  won  by  our  godly  conduct — all  this, 
assuredly,  calls  for  manifold  gifts  of  grace.  We  are 
not  surprised,  therefore,  at  the  Church's  belief  in  the 
reality  and  power  of  the  confirmation  gift ;  we  should 
rather  be  astonished  to  hear  that  it  could  be  anything 
less  than  is  claimed  for  it.  Men  need  the  guidance 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  multiplied  and  perplexing 
duties  of  life  and  here  we  have  the  pledge  that  they 
receive  it. 

Not  that  we  confine  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  to 
this  or  to  any  ordinance.  The  work  of  the  blessed 
Breath  of  God  is  not  limited  to  anything  less  than 
all  humanity  in  its  beneficent  operation.  But  "here 
His  working  is  sweetest  and  strongest  and  largest; 
here  it  is  promised  working,  pledged  working,  cove- 
nanted working." 

So  we  find  in  Holy  Scripture  that  the  laying  on 
of  hands  for  the  laity  is  as  well  established  as  the 
ordination  of  the  clergy.  St.  Paul  at  Ephesus  (Acts 
xix.  4-6)  baptizes  his  converts  and  then  lays  his  hands 
upon  them,  and  through  the  laying  on  of  the  apostle's 
hands  the  Holy  Ghost  comes  on  them.  At  Samaria, 
Philip  the  deacon  (Acts  viii.  14-17)  baptizes  many 
converts,  and  then  two  of  the  apostles,  St.  Peter  and 
St.  John,  come  down  from  Jerusalem,  pray  for  them 


CONFIRMATION  AND  OTHER  SACRAMENTS    247 

and  lay  their  hands  upon  them  and  they  receive  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  is  no  wonder  that  this  laying  on  of 
hands  is  reckoned  (Hebrews  vi.  2)  as  one  of  the  "first 
principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ'^  one  of  the 
"foundations'^  of  the  Christian  life. 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  that  this 
thought  of  confirmation  as  the  ordination  of  a  lay- 
man for  his  work  leads  naturally  to  a  larger  concep- 
tion than  most  of  us  have  of  the  sacramental  system 
of  the  Church.  The  sacramental  idea  is  not  that  of 
grace  in  baptism  or  Holy  Communion  only,  but  of 
grace  meeting  us  at  every  turn,  hallowing  all  our 
occupations  and  shedding  a  divine  light  on  every  walk 
of  life:  grace  that  gives  spiritual  power  to  the  can- 
didate who  kneels  before  the  bishop,  the  successor  of 
the  apostles,  helping  him  to  serve  God  amid  the  eager 
activities  of  a  business  or  professional  career;  grace 
to  bless  the  newly  married  couple  at  the  altar,  en- 
abling them  to  live  together  in  what  is  thus  made  an 
holy  estate  of  matrimony;  grace  to  bring  physical 
and  spiritual  healing  to  the  sick  and  feeble  and  to 
sanctify  to  their  use  the  physician's  remedies;  grace 
to  add  new  spiritual  vigor  to  the  pardoned  penitent 
making  a  fresh  start  in  life ;  grace  to  confer  character 
on  those  who  are  particularly  called  to  holy  orders  in 
the  Church  of  God — and  all  these  gifts  just  as  real  as 
the  pardoning  grace  of  baptism  or  the  strengthening 
grace  of  Holy  Communion. 

We  do  believe,  then,  that  when  once  it  is  realized 
how  sacred  life  is  and  how  much  we  need  divine 


248  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

strength  to  live  it  as  sons  of  God  the  value  of  con- 
firmation will  be  appreciated  as  conferring  a  special 
gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  its  appropriateness  will 
be  particularly  evident  when  it  is  administered,  as 
it  is  in  the  Western  Church,  at  just  that  period  when 
one  is  entering  upon  life's  work.  It  is  sometimes 
asked  why  confirmation  should  be  insisted  on  for 
those  who  wish  to  unite  with  the  Church  from  other 
Christian  bodies.  "You  do  not  ask  them  to  be  bap- 
tized again/'  it  is  urged;  "why  ask  them  to  be  con- 
firmed, if  they  have  already  made  a  profession  of 
Christian  faith?"  If  confirmation  were  merely  a 
profession  of  Christian  faith  or  a  public  renewal  of 
baptismal  vows,  it  would  not  be  thought  necessary 
for  one  who  had  already  openly  confessed  our  Lord. 
^Ye  do  not  insist  on  baptism,  because  that  is  some- 
thing that  has  already  been  done  for  the  soul  and  to 
repeat  it  would  be  sacrilege.  But  the  laying  on  of 
hands  is  something  that  has  not  been  done,  something, 
too,  so  full  of  meaning  that  to  leave  it  undone  would 
be  a  distinct  loss  to  the  soul. 

If  confirmation  were  more  often  presented  in  this 
way  to  those  who  now  regard  it  simply  as  a  public 
confession  of  Christ,  surely  many  more  would  be 
anxious  to  receive  it.  Unless  it  were  this  we  could 
not  ask  one  who  had  already  confessed  Him  to  do  so 
again.  To  insist  upon  it  would  be  to  lay  stress  on 
a  mere  form.  And  confirmation  is  not  a  mere  form; 
it  is  an  apostolic  ordinance  instinct  with  life. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION  249 


XXVII. 
THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION 

OUE  final  authority  in  matters  of  faith  is  the 
inspired  Word  of  God,  the  Holy  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  To  these — not  as  an 
independent  authority,  but  as  the  record  of  the 
thought  and  belief  of  the  Church — we  turn  for  light 
on  the  problems  of  life.  Here,  however,  we  are  face 
to  face  with  a  fact  which  we  must  not  attempt  to 
belittle,  that  faith  in  the  Bible  has  been  tremendously 
weakened  in  the  generation  now  passing.  The  claims 
of  the  newer  criticism,  the  moral  difficulties  of  the 
Old  Testament,  realized  now  as  never  before:  these 
and  other  causes  have  upset  the  faith  of  many  and 
led  them  to  reject  the  Bible  as  a  divine  revelation. 
We  must  face  the  facts  as  they  are  then  and  endeavor, 
if  possible,  to  find  a  solution  of  these  difficulties. 

Just  what  is  the  Bible  ?  To  put  this  very  simply : 
Holy  Scripture  is  the  record  of  man's  search  for  God 
and  of  God's  response  to  his  seeking. 

Men,  everywhere  and  always,  have  been  trying  to 
find  God.  The  history  of  the  world  religions  is  a 
record  of  their  efforts  to  know  Him.    And  the  history 


250  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

of  Israel  is  the  story  of  a  nation  which,  whatever  its 
faults  and  failings,  gave  itself  preeminently  to  this 
religious  task.  With  other  nations  there  is  much  in 
the  way  of  secular  progress  and  running  with  this  a 
spiritual  development  also,  but  with  the  Jews  the 
record  of  the  nation  is  the  record  of  a  people  who 
devoted  themselves  almost  exclusively  to  the  effort 
after  spiritual  growth.  However  we  may  account 
for  it,  Israel  is  a  peculiar  people.  Its  evolution  is  a 
spiritual  evolution.  It  seems  to  have  a  special  work 
and  that  work  is  the  development  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness. Others  sought  for  God,  feeling  after  Him 
if  haply  they  might  find  Him ;  Israel  was  in  a  unique 
way  devoted  to  the  task.  It  has  no  history  apart  from 
its  religious  history,  no  literature  except  its  religious 
writings.  It  seems  to  have  but  one  purpose,  to  keep 
alive  the  knowledge  and  remembrance  of  God. 

Now  if  we  believe  in  God  as  a  person  we  believe 
that  when  men  seek  Him  He  will  reveal  Himself 
to  them.  When  one  human  personality  strives  with  all 
its  might  to  know  another,  that  other  cannot  remain 
indifferent.  Knowledge,  friendship,  intimacy,  is  the 
reward  of  those  who  seek  it.  So  those  who  try  to 
find  God  learn  that  as  they  move  toward  Him  He 
moves  to  meet  them;  when  men  strive  diligently  to 
attain  a  knowledge  of  Him  He  unveils  Himself  and 
opens  before  them  the  treasures  of  His  mind.  In 
proportion  as  men  have  tried  to  understand  His  char- 
acter has  He  responded  and  their  aspiration  has  had 
its  answer  in  His  stooping  to  meet  them  and  breathing 
into  them  His  own  Spirit. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION  251 

This  will  help  us  to  see  what  we  are  to  -anderstand 
by  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  It  does  not  mean  that 
the  Book  itself  is  a  mechanically  inspired  writing.  It 
means  that  men  whose  souls  have  breathed  forth  their 
longing  for  God  have  in  turn  had  His  life  breathed 
into  them.  The  men  are  inspired,  rather  than  the 
Book. 

Yet  Biblical  inspiration  is  unique.  While  we 
find  that  other  men,  and  therefore  other  books,  are 
inspired,  they  are  not  guided  by  God  as  are  the  Scrip- 
ture writers.  Men  in  every  nation  and  every  time, 
seeking  God,  have  found  Him,  but  as  the  Jewish 
nation  gave  itself  peculiarly  to  this  search  for  God, 
and  as  its  prophets  and  spiritual  leaders  devoted 
themselves  with  all  their  powers  to  this  one  task,  so 
God  made  his  response  to  their  aspiration  more 
generous  and  satisfying.  Biblical  inspiration  differs 
from  all  other  inspiration  because  it  is  God's  answer 
to  a  search  for  Him  such  as  can  be  found  in  no  other 
nation  and  with  no  other  individuals.  The  ancient 
fathers  used  to  speak  of  an  inspiration  of  the  great 
thinkers  of  Greece  as  a  reflection  of  that  Light  that 
lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the  world.  How 
much  larger  and  richer,  how  transcendently  deeper 
and  fuller,  is  the  inspiration  that  comes  to  the  spir- 
itual leaders  of  a  people  especially  devoted  to  the 
search  for  God,  who  inherited  all  the  past  of  a  race 
and  nation  dedicated  to  such  a  search,  and  but  gave 
expression  to  the  accumulating  knowledge  into  the 
possession  of  which  they  had  come. 


252  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

With  this  conception  of  what  the  Bible  is,  we 
shall  see  the  limitations  of  inspiration.  The  men 
who  wrote  the  Scriptures  were  inspired  for  one  special 
purpose :  that  they  might  tell  about  God.  He  revealed 
Himself  to  them.  He  did  not  necessarily  tell  them 
more  than  other  men  knew  about  science,  or  history, 
or  medicine,  or  a  hundred  other  things;  He  simply 
revealed  to  them  His  own  character.  His  nature,  His 
mind.  His  purpose  for  men.  The  Bible  is  inspired  for 
one  purpose — to  show  the  truth  about  God,  to  give 
men  a  sure  and  certain  record  in  matters  of  faith  and 
morals.  Mistakes  in  history,  errors  in  fact,  ignorance 
of  scientific  truth — none  of  these,  if  they  be  present, 
will  invalidate  the  claims  of  Scripture.  The  Bible 
writers  do  not  pretend  to  any  infallibility  on  these 
points.  They  are  inspired  simply  to  give  a  right 
moral  teaching  and  to  point  out  a  clear  path  of 
faith.  Assuming,  for  example,  that  they  accept  the 
current  theories  of  their  time  about  the  creation  of 
the  world,  or  that  they  place  on  record  a  well-known 
legend  about  a  universal  flood,  we  have  no  concern 
about  the  source  of  these  stories.  What  interests  us  is 
that  now  for  the  first  time  God  is  related  to  these 
ancient  narratives:  He  creates.  His  Spirit  broods 
upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  He  enters  into  relations 
with  men,  their  errors  are  sins  against  Him,  He 
rewards  or  punishes. 

And  so  it  is  with  Bible  History.  We  are  not  con- 
cerned so  much  with  the  accuracy  of  names  and  dates 
as  with  the  fact  that  as  nations  rise  and  fall,  the  Bible 
record  of  their  life  differs  from  all  other  history  in 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION  253 

that  it  shows  God's  hand  in  all  things.  He  stands 
behind  the  scenes  working  His  purpose  out  and  what- 
ever human  causes  may  seem  to  bring  about  results 
they  are  shown  to  be  but  the  instruments  of  His 
power.  Secular  historians  would  tell  of  the  struggles 
of  Egypt  or  Syria  or  Damascus  or  the  kingdoms  of 
the  East  and  how  Israel  was  affected  by  their  varying 
fortunes;  the  Bible  historians  show  God  behind  all, 
working  out  His  purposes  through  human  agencies. 
Secular  writers  would  tell  of  the  reign  of  Cyrus  and 
its  influence  on  the  history  of  Israel ;  the  Bible  writers 
show  this,  but  show  also  how  God  "raised  up  Cyrus" 
to  carry  out  His  own  divine  plans.  An  ordinary  his- 
torian would  tell  of  human  events  that  proceeded 
from  certain  causes  and  led  to  certain  results;  the 
inspired  historian  shows  God  as  the  moving  power 
behind  all  causes.  In  measure  there  are  seers  and 
prophets  who  have  done  something  like  that  for  us 
in  the  Great  War.  "We  have  only  to  read  them  to 
discover  by  contrast  the  heights  of  biblical  prophetic 
power. 

Such  a  view  of  inspiration  will  show  us  again  that 
there  is  an  evolutionary  progress  in  revelation.  If  the 
Bible  is  the  record  of  man's  search  for  God,  we  shall 
expect  it  to  show  the  steps  that  have  marked  the 
progress  of  that  search.  ^len  do  not  come  to  know 
Him  all  at  once  to  perfection;  rather,  they  gain  this 
knowledge  piecemeal,  little  by  little,  till  it  is  for  all 
practical  purposes  complete. 

So  there  is  an  evolution  in  the  idea  of  God.  At 
first  the  thought  of  Him  seems  very  anthropomorphic ; 


254  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

then  He  is  regarded  as  hardly  more  than  a  tribal 
deity;  then,  in  prophets  and  psalmists,  He  becomes 
the  God  of  the  whole  earth ;  and  at  last  in  the  gospels 
and  the  epistles,  He  is  seen  as  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Spirit,  devising  means  that  all  His  banished  ones  may 
return. 

Or  take,  again,  the  morality  of  the  Bible.  At 
first,  in  some  of  the  stories  of  the  Book  of  Judges,  it 
is  crude  and  imperfect.  Even  in  the  psalms  there 
are  lapses  into  a  spirit  of  vengefulness,  with  impreca- 
tions against  the  enemies  of  Israel  and  of  Israel's 
God.  These  are  not  to  be  judged  by  themselves,  but 
rather  as  compared  with  surrounding  heathenism. 
Only  so  do  we  get  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
immense  distance  that  separated  those  who  knew  God 
from  those  who  had  not  yet  found  Him.  Yet,  little 
by  little,  relatively  imperfect  ideas  of  God's  moral 
character  drop  away,  until  in  the  revelation  of  the 
New  Testament  we  see  God  in  His  infinite  perfection, 
a  God  of  beauty,  of  holiness,  of  tender  mercy  and  com- 
passion and  love.  There  are  great  elements  of  truth 
in  the  old  conception;  for  God  is  just  as  well  as  lov- 
ing, stern  as  well  as  compassionate,  with  a  holiness 
that  hates  sin.  In  the  days  when  America  was  neutral 
some  of  us  found  deep  satisfaction  in  preaching  about 
the  Assyrians,  because  we  really  meant  the  Prussians ! 
We  "thanked  God  for  the  imprecatory  psalms"  !  Hab- 
bakkuk  had  a  real  message  for  us !  We  saw  that  the 
Old  Testament  thought  is  allowed  to  remain  as  a 
witness  to  this  side  of  God's  nature,  as,  indeed,  it  finds 
reiteration  even  in  the  thought  of  St.  John  or  St. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION  255 

Paul,  or  in  the  words  of  our  Lord  Christ  Himself. 
The  predominant  thought  there  is  of  the  God  whose 
love  for  sinners  shines  in  the  light  of  the  Cross  of 
Calvary,  but  Jesus  Himself  did  not  speak  always  with 
a  wooing,  almost  with  a  cooing  note !  Righteous 
indignation  and  intense  hatred  of  evil  were  always  a 
part  of  the  mind  of  Christ.  ^ 

The  moral  difficulties  of  the  Bible  disappear  when 
once  we  realize  that  there  was  this  growth  in  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  in  the  appreciation  of  what  His 
holiness  involves.  We  are  prepared  to  learn  that  the 
spirit  of  Elisha  is  forbidden  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee, 
or  that  the  imprecatory  psalms  give  place  to  the 
prayer  of  St.  Stephen,  "Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to 
their  charge." 

So,  while  all  parts  of  the  Bible  are  of  value,  all 
are  not  of  equal  value.  We  reach  the  Holy  of  Holies 
as  we  gaze  on  the  face  of  the  Son  of  Man.  But  the 
distance  that  separates  the  New  Testament  from  the 
Old  is  no  greater  than  that  which  separated  the  writ- 
ers of  the  old  dispensation,  with  all  their  absence 
of  the  full  Christian  faith,  from  the  ignorance  and 
immorality,  the  idolatry  and  superstition  of  the  sur- 
rounding peoples,  in  the  midst  of  which  their  light 
was  as  the  brightness  of  the  sun. 

And  each  new  bit  of  knowledge  comes  only  with 
man's  striving  to  reach  up  to  God.  The  problem  of 
suffering  and  evil,  a  puzzle  to  the  writer  of  the  Book 


Jefferson:  Old  Truths  and  New  Facts. 


256  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

of  Job,  who  rests  at  length  in  the  thought  of  God's 
greatness  and  man's  littleness  and  the  impossibility 
of  the  one  being  comprehended  by  the  other,  is  solved 
for  us,  as  well  as  it  ever  will  be  solved  this  side  of  the 
grave,  in  the  life  and  atoning  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Or,  heredity  and  its  blasting  course,  over  which  Ezekiel 
agonizes  till  he  seems  almost  to  reject  the  second 
commandment  in  his  indignant  denunciation  of  a 
wrong  interpretation  of  it,  is  solved  by  St.  Paul  who 
sees  the  whole  truth  and  knows  the  remedy  for  the 
inherited  sin.  Or,  once  more,  immortality  and  the 
resurrection,  guessed  at  by  the  prophets,  held  fast 
tremblingly  by  psalmists,  is  made  certain  in  Christ. 
So,  all  through  the  centuries,  men  were  seeking  after 
God,  finding  Him  little  by  little,  adding  here  and 
there  a  bit  to  their  knowledge,  and  at  last  as  they 
look  upon  Christ  knowing  Him  to  perfection. 

It  is  because  the  Old  Testament  has  led  up  so 
gradually  and  yet  so  surely  to  the  splendors  of 
the  New,  that  we  postulate  God's  inspiring  guidance 
through  the  course  of  the  whole  work.  "The  fruitful 
soil  from  which  sprang  the  Christ,  the  writings  which 
on  every  page  witness  for  truth  and  righteousness 
with  passionate  devotion,  the  institutions  which  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  Christian  Church  and  which 
are  associated  with  an  unique  moral  and  spiritual 
progress  of  humanity  extending  continuously  over 
some  forty  centuries,  these  surely  need  no  other  argu- 
ment to  shield  them  from  the  aspersion  of  being 
cradled  in  sheer  invention  and  fraud."  ^ 


^  Body :  The  Permanent  Value  of  Genesis. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  ITS  INSPIRATION  257 

There  is  here  a  sort  of  concentration  of  revelation. 
God  reveals  Himself  in  many  ways:  in  nature,  for 
the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firma- 
ment showeth  His  handiwork ;  in  man,  made  in  God's 
image,  after  His  likeness ;  in  men  especially  who  have 
sought  spiritual  truth,  for  there  His  Spirit  illumines 
and  inspires;  all  this  deepened  and  concentrated  in 
the  revelation  of  the  Son,  who  came  as  the  brightness 
of  the  Father's  glory  and  the  express  image,  the 
stamped  copy,  of  His  Person.  Whatever  the  diflScul- 
ties  of  all  that  goes  before,  they  resolve  themselves, 
when  viewed  in  the  light  of  this  splendid  outcome  of 
it.  We  have  at  length  in  concrete  expression  the  full 
knowledge  of  the  Infinite.  What  Christ  is,  God 
is;  what  Christ  thinks,  God  thinks;  what  Christ  says 
or  does,  God  would  say  and  do.  He  that  hath  seen 
Him  hath  seen  the  Father. 


258  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXVIII. 
SOME  BIBLE  PROBLEMS 

THE  view  of  the  Bible  presented  in  the  last  chap- 
ter may  clear  up  some  difficulties  about  Holy 
Scripture  and  its  interpretation. 

Take,  for  example,  the  matter  of  the  higher 
criticism  of  the  Bible.  There  is  hardly  room  to  go 
much  into  detail  as  to  what  the  historical  criticism 
is,  how  it  may  be  used,  how  it  has  been  abused. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  higher  criticism  is  so  called 
in  contradistinction  to  the  lower,  or  textual,  criticism. 
Textual  criticism  has  to  do  with  the  text  of  the  Bible. 
It  collects  the  different  manuscripts,  where  there  are 
various  readings  seeks  to  ascertain  which  is  the  cor- 
rect one,  endeavors  to  show  the  relative  value  of  the 
different  manuscript  readings,  examines  ancient  trans- 
lations of  the  Bible  or  quotations  in  early  Christian 
authors,  and  so  gives  us  the  "text"  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures. 

All  this  is  called  the  lower  criticism  because  it 
has  to  do  with  the  bare  text  of  the  Bible,  the  mere 
groundwork,  while  the  higher  criticism  has  to  do  with 
the  spirit  of  the  writing  itself  and  is  therefore  higher 


SOME  BIBLE  PROBLEMS  259 

in  its  order  and  work.  The  higher  criticism  devotes 
its  attention  to  such  matters  as  the  integrity  and 
authenticity  of  the  sacred  writings,  the  style  of  the 
various  authors,  their  methods  of  work,  the  sources 
of  their  information,  what  human  influences  were 
exerted  upon  them,  how  their  work  compares  with 
that  of  other  writers,  what  principles  dominated  them. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  sort  of  criticism, 
if  reverently  done,  can  shed  much  light  on  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Bible,  just  as  similar  studies  have  helped 
to  a  fuller  appreciation  of  the  writings  of  great  au- 
thors of  secular  literature,  Shakespeare  for  example; 
but  as  there  have  been  Ignatius  Donnellys  in  Shake- 
spearean criticism  so  there  are  men  of  like  startling 
type  in  Biblical  criticism,  whose  work  is  done  in  a 
spirit  of  defiant  antagonism  to  traditional  views. 
Such  men  often  give  us  wild  theorizing  and  irrev- 
erent speculation  and  some  of  them  have  carried  their 
methods  so  far  as  to  destroy  completely  the  religious 
value  of  the  Bible. 

The  work  of  hostile  critics  of  this  type  need  not, 
however,  blind  us  to  the  value  of  the  higher  criticism 
in  general,  nor  to  the  debt  we  owe  to  men  of  a  more 
reverent  school  whose  work  may  prove  helpful  often, 
even  to  many  who  have  not  yet  been  able  to  accept 
their  conclusions.  At  any  rate,  the  question  can  have 
no  terrors  for  those  who  hold  the  larger  view  of  the 
Bible  as  just  presented  and  read  its  pages  with  the 
same  idea  in  their  minds  that  filled  the  minds  of  its 
writers — read  it,  that  is,  to  find  God  and  be  found  of 
Him.     Such  will  see  that,  whoever  wrote  its  earlier 


260  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

books  and  however  ignorant  they  may  have  been  about 
some  things  that  we  know,  they  had  gained  something 
which  we  can  never  find  except  by  their  guidance. 

It  is  when  we  read  the  Bible  in  this  way  that  our 
own  experience  convinces  us  of  its  divine  origin. 
Eead  only  for  critical  study,  the  Bible  does  not  yield 
up  its  spiritual  treasures ;  but  read  however  critically, 
if  yet  read  prayerfully  and  devotionally,  with  the 
earnest  desire  to  know  its  inner  spirit,  the  Bible  is 
seen  to  be  a  divine  library — a  volume  that  answers 
and  corresponds  to  man  so  precisely,  fully,  and  satis- 
factorily, in  so  peculiar,  so  solitar}^,  so  unapproach- 
able a  way,  that  its  power  cannot  be  accounted  for 
except  on  the  theory  that  God  was  the  supreme  agent 
in  its  production. 

The  Bible  "finds"  man — as  having  intellect,  con- 
science, feeling,  it  "finds"  him;  as  ignorant,  frail, 
dissatisfied;  as  sinful  or  sorrowful;  as  a  seeker  after 
truth,  it  "finds"  him,  and  "finds"  him  in  a  wholly 
unique  and  transcendent  way.  Other  religious  works 
possess  a  similar  power,  some  h3mins  for  example, 
such  as  the  Te  Deum,  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis,  or  one 
of  our  modern  hymns  like  "Sun  of  my  Soul"  and 
"Rock  of  Ages" ;  or  some  devotions,  such  as  the  Litany 
of  the  Church;  or  some  book  like  the  Imitation  of 
Christ.  But  in  two  ways  all  such  compositions  are 
immensely  inferior  to  the  Bible:  first,  because  their 
power  is  derivative  and  second-hand,  it  is  not  original 
with  them,  it  is  but  a  reflection  of  the  Bible's  creative 
power,  as  the  moon  is  a  reflection  of  the  light  of  the 


SOME  BIBLE  PROBLEMS  261 

sun;  and  secondly,  because,  however  stirring,  sub- 
duing, or  exalting  such  works  may  be,  they  do  not 
"find"  us  so  deeply,  exhaustively,  or  perennially  as 
does  the  Bible. 

Were  we  to  read  the  Scriptures  more  we  should 
have  fewer  doubts  about  their  value.  The  witness  of 
our  own  experience  would  be  an  invaluable  comfort 
and  support  in  the  presence  of  plausible  hostile 
criticism.  To  one  who  has  proved  it  for  himself  no 
criticism  can  touch  the  question  of  the  Bible's  divin- 
ity. It  may  change  our  human  theories,  but  it  can 
never  change  the  fact  which  our  theories  but  seek  to 
explain. 

One  other  fact  about  the  Bible  should  be  noticed 
before  we  close,  its  relation  to  the  Church  as  the  ex- 
pounder and  interpreter  of  its  message.  One  funda- 
mental error  in  the  conception  of  the  Bible  held  by 
many  Christian  people  was  pointed  out  in  a  previous 
chapter.  They  imagine  that  the  New  Testament  is 
given  us  as  a  sort  of  compendium  of  the  principles  of 
Christianity  and  that  they  have  only  to  turn  to  it  to 
find  every  doctrine  of  the  faith  and  every  Christian 
practice  categorically  stated  and  enjoined.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  New  Testament  was  not  written  to  give 
men  their  first  knowledge  of  Christ  and  His  teaching ; 
it  was  written  for  those  who  had  already  received  in- 
struction in  the  fundamentals  of  the  faith;  and  in- 
stead of  the  direct  and  categorical  statement  of  the 
main  facts  of  the  Christian  creeds  we  rather  have  in- 
direct allusions  to  them  as  to  things  already  well 


262  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

known  and  generally  accepted.  Even  the  gospels  do 
not  give  a  first  knowledge  of  our  Lord's  life.  By 
word  of  mouth  and  by  the  circulation  of  fragmentary 
written  records  most  of  the  events  of  Christ's  life  and 
the  principal  truths  about  His  person  and  His  teach- 
ing had  been  learned  already,  and  the  gospels  are,  as 
with  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark,  memoirs  of  the 
Master's  life;  or,  as  with  St.  Luke,  a  more  carefully 
arranged  and  detailed  statement  of  the  facts,  to  teach 
the  disciples  the  certainty  of  those  things  wherein 
they  had  already  been  instructed;  or,  in  the  case  of 
St.  John's  Gospel,  a  supplementary  record  written  to 
show  the  growth  of  an  apostle's  faith  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ. 

So  with  the  other  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  epistles  for  example.  Those  to  whom  these  apos- 
tolic letters  are  written  are  evidently  men  who  know 
already  the  substance  of  the  faith.  They  have  been 
taught  orally  about  the  life  and  doctrine  of  Jesus, 
about  the  Church  and  her  sacraments,  about  their 
own  moral  duties,  about  the  atonement,  the  resurrec- 
tion, the  ascension,  and  the  life  of  the  world  to  come. 
The  purpose  of  the  Biblical  writings  is  to  explain 
things  they  have  forgotten  or  misunderstood  and  to 
correct  erroneous  doctrine  and  the  practices  arising 
therefrom.  St.  Paul,  to  take  an  instance,  wrote  to 
the  Thessalonians  to  clear  away  current  misunder- 
standings about  the  second  coming  of  our  Lord,  not 
to  give  them  their  first  information  about  that  future 
advent;  he  wrote  to  the  Corinthians,  not  to  tell  them 
for  the  first  time  about  the  resurrection,  but  to  point 


SOME  BIBLE  PROBLEMS  263 

out  the  errors  of  those  who  disbelieved  or  misinter- 
preted that  great  fact ;  he  wrote  to  the  Colossians,  not 
to  lay  down  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
but  to  show  them  that  their  own  knowledge  of  it 
should  have  kept  them  from  serious  errors  into  which 
they  were  falling. 

This  is  what  makes  the  Bible  by  itself  so  difficult 
to  understand.  If  we  wish  to  know  its  teaching  we 
cannot  turn  to  its  pages  and  there  find  a  direct,  plain, 
simple  statement  of  fact  or  doctrine;  we  must  turn 
to  the  history  of  the  time,  study  the  tradition  of  the 
Church,  and  with  this  as  a  background  all  will  fall 
naturally  into  place  and  be  readily  susceptible  of 
understanding.  It  would  be  very  difficult,  for 
instance,  to  prove  from  the  Bible  the  need  of  infant 
baptism,  or  the  observance  of  Sunday,  or  the  char- 
acter of  the  Christian  ministry,  or  a  dozen  other 
things  that  might  be  mentioned.  But  when  we  study 
Christian  tradition  and  discover  that  the  early  Church 
believed  and  practised  these  things,  a  dozen  or  more 
Bible  references  come  up  at  once,  proving  by  their 
indirect  allusion  the  traditional  view  and  themselves 
incapable  of  satisfactory  explanation  unless  that  tra- 
dition be  assumed  as  iurnishing  the  setting  of  the 
Scripture  language. 

By  the  authority  of  the  Church  as  the  interpreter 
of  the  Bible  we  mean,  then,  that  in  reading  God's 
Word  we  must  be  guided  by  the  Church's  tradition, 
her  creeds  and  her  conciliar  decrees.  The  Bible  is  a 
difficult  book  to  study;  we  need  help  in  reading  it 
and  the  Church  gives  us  that  aid. 


264  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Suppose  some  young  students  were  studying  the 
philosophy  of  Kant  or  Herbert  Spencer.  It  would 
be  of  great  assistance  to  them  if  they  had  a  teacher  to 
summarize  for  them  the  principles  enunciated  in  the 
various  works  of  these  great  authors;  it  would  be  of 
greater  help  if  they  had  an  authoritative  interpreta- 
tion of  certain  difficult  passages.  Now  the  Bible  is 
deeper,  more  profound,  than  any  human  writings 
and  in  the  decrees  of  the  Church  we  have  an  authori- 
tative interpretation  of  its  contents.  In  the  decisions 
of  the  undisputed  general  councils,  we  have  the  opin- 
ions of  those  who  came  immediately  after  the  time 
of  Christ  and  His  apostles  as  to  what  the  Bible 
teaching  means;  not,  it  will  be  observed,  their  per- 
sonal opinions  of  what  the  truth  was,  but  their  state- 
ment of  what  the  Church  had  always  understood  to 
be  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  writers — an  opinion 
as  valuable  as  would  be,  for  example,  a  letter  from 
an  intimate  friend  of  the  poet  Browning  who  had 
long  known  him  and  from  conversations  with  him 
could  tell  what  this  or  that  passage  in  one  of  his 
poems  meant.  In  like  manner,  Church  tradition  in- 
terprets Scriptural  writings. 

In  the  creeds  of  the  undivided  Church  we  have 
an  authoritative  summary  of  the  Bible.  We  are  told : 
This  is  what  the  Church  has  taught.  You  will  find  a 
fuller  explanation  of  each  article  in  the  Bible,  which 
records  the  original  statement  of  the  truth  by  Christ, 
or  the  interpretation  of  it  by  His  followers,  who  were 
members  of  the  Church,  explaining  her  teaching. 
Start  with  this  teaching,  ponder  it;  then  read  the 


SOME  BIBLE  PROBLEMS  265 

Scriptures  and  find  from  careful  study  of  their  pages 
that  the  teaching  is  true. 

In  other  words,  we  believe  that  the  Church  gave 
us  the  Bible — there  was  a  Church  organized  and 
teaching  in  the  world  before  the  Bible  was  written — 
and  the  Church  is  best  able  to  interpret  the  Book 
she  has  given  us. 

This  is  very  different  from  the  popular  evan- 
gelical statement  that  "the  Bible  and  the  Bible  only 
is  the  religion  of  Protestants."  We  see  what  that 
theory  results  in :  Every  denomination  finding  a  dif- 
ferent faith  and  system,  as  each  reads  the  Scriptures 
from  a  different  point  of  view ;  different  people  going 
to  the  Bible  to  pick  out  what  pleases  them  or  what 
fits  in  with  their  theories  and  forgetting  things  of  a 
different  character  that  affect,  qualify,  and  explain 
what  they  have  accepted.  No  one  is  wise  enough  to 
choose  out  of  the  Bible  even  what  is  most  necessary. 
We  shall  best  read  its  pages  if  we  take  the  summary 
of  its  teaching  which  the  Church  gives  us  in  her 
creeds  or  in  the  decrees  of  her  councils  and  then  study 
the  Bible  with  these  as  a  kind  of  syllabus,  a  sort  of 
working  hypothesis,  which  our  further  reading  will 
prove,  amplify,  and  explain.  Otherwise  we  are  like 
children  at  a  feast,  picking  out  the  sweet  things  we 
fancy  and  leaving  the  rest  to  our  hurt  and  through 
our  own  fault. 


266  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXIX. 
THE  CERTAINTY  OF  A  FUTURE  LIFE 

THERE  is  one  great  hunger  of  the  human  heart, 
one  passionate  yearning,  which  it  longs  to  have 
satisfied:  to  know  of  a  certainty  whether  there  is  a 
future  life;  to  look  out  beyond  the  present  and  see 
what  lies  on  the  other  side  of  the  grave.  Death  is 
something  we  must  all  face;  we  draw  nearer  to  it 
every  day;  it  is  inevitable  for  each  of  us.  There  is 
hardly  any  of  us  whom  it  has  not  already  closely 
touched :  some  friend  or  relative  it  has  taken  from  us, 
some  one  whom  we  have  loved  long  since  and  lost — is 
it  only  for  a  while?  shall  we  meet  these  dear  ones 
again  ?  or  have  we  loved  them  for  a  day,  to  know  them 
no  more  ?  There  is  sorrow  in  the  world,  too ;  poverty, 
sickness,  suffering,  injustice,  misery  of  every  kind; 
we  meet  with  it  ourselves,  we  see  it  in  others.  Is 
there  another  life,  where  all  this  is  to  be  remedied? 
All  these  questions  have  been  pressed  home  so  sharply 
during  the  dark  days  of  war.  Thousands  who  had  not 
thought  much  about  them  before  have  had  to  face 
them — fresh  thousands  every  day. 

Yes,  this  is  the  soul's  deepest  yearning — to  know 


THE  CERTAINTY  OF  A  FUTURE  LIFE        267 

about  these  things.  Our  very  faith  in  the  existence 
of  God  hangs  on  the  answer ;  for  if  all  that  is  unsatis- 
factory in  life  is  not  to  be  made  perfect  hereafter, 
how  can  we  still  trust  in  a  God  of  love  ?  If  we  have 
loved  and  labored  for  others  to  no  purpose,  only  to 
have  the  heart  torn  and  wounded  at  last  by  separa- 
tion, what  a  cheerless,  hopeless  world  this  is ! 

Is  there,  then,  another  world,  is  there  an  endless 
life,  or  is  the  grave  our  only  goal?  How  men  have 
wrestled  with  that  problem !  How  they  have  reasoned 
and  weighed  probabilities  and  wrung  hints  from 
nature  and  forced  longings  into  opinions  and  tried 
to  turn  opinions  into  convictions — and  yet  they  have 
not  really  known ! 

Outside  of  Christ,  we  never  can  know.  One  often 
thinks  of  the  testimony  of  nature:  the  morning  suc- 
ceeds the  night;  the  spring  time  follows  the  winter; 
the  blade  comes  up  from  the  buried  seed.  These  illus- 
trate a  faith  in  the  future  life,  but  of  themselves  they 
prove  nothing.  Nor  does  our  human  reason  give  any 
positive  answer.  Hopes  only  are  offered,  reasonable 
hopes  —  but  we  want  more  than  a  hope,  we  want 
certainty. 

That  certainty  we  have  in  Christ  Jesus.  "Now  is 
Christ  risen  from  the  dead"  is  the  way  St.  Paul  sums 
up  the  apostolic  message.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
about  it.  "He  was  seen  of  Cephas,  then  of  the 
Twelve ;  after  that.  He  was  seen  of  above  five  hundred 
brethren  at  once;  after  that.  He  was  seen  of  James, 
then  of  all  the  apostles.  And  last  of  all  He  was  seen 
of  me  also."     And  so  I  know,  the  Apostle  seems  to 


268  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

say;  I  do  not  argue,  I  state  facts.  "Now  is  Christ 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  become  the  first  fruits  of 
them  that  slept/'  I  know  that  death  is  not  the  end 
of  all  things ;  it  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  perfect 
life.  I  am  sure  of  the  existence  of  the  world  to  come ; 
I  know  that  there  will  be  found  endless  perfection  of 
being,  that  there  all  the  sickness  and  suffering  and 
sorrow  of  this  world  will  be  done  away.  I  am  certain 
that  in  the  land  of  light  there  will  be  the  meeting  of 
friends  again,  the  knitting  together  of  the  old  love. 
I  know  it,  because  I  know  that  Christ  my  Lord  rose 
from  the  dead  and  because  I  know  that  His  resurrec- 
tion is  not  a  separate  and  isolated  event,  it  is  the 
pledge  of  ours.  He  became  man,  lived  our  life,  died 
as  we  die,  was  buried,  rose  again  in  His  human  nature, 
and  in  that  nature  ascended  and  sitteth  on  the  riofht 
hand  of  the  Father.  Because  He  lived  and  died  and 
rose  as  man,  all  men  shall  rise  as  He  did.  He  is  the 
first  fruits  of  them  that  sleep.  As  the  wave  offering 
of  the  first  grain  of  the  harvest  is  the  pledge  and  sign 
of  all  the  crop  that  is  yet  to  be  ingathered,  so  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  is  the  assurance  that  we,  too, 
shall  rise  and  live  in  Him. 

The  Christian,  then,  is  absolutely  sure  of  this 
about  which  other  men  can  at  most  but  be  hopeful. 
We  do  not  have  to  reason  out  our  belief;  we  believe 
because  we  have  a  certain  testimony.  Those  early 
disciples  were  witnesses  who  had  seen  and  handled. 
We  feel  that  men  who  spoke  and  acted  as  these  did 
could  not  have  been  mistaken.  We  know  that  such 
wonderful  works  as  they  wrought  could  not  have  been 


THE  CERTAINTY  OF  A  FUTURE  LIFE         269 

done  by  deluded,  fanatical  enthusiasts.  We  see,  after 
all  these  centuries,  that  no  such  mighty  influence  as 
that  of  the  Christian  Church  could  have  had  its 
origin,  say  in  the  easily  exploded  dream  of  an  imag- 
inative woman.  Its  wonderful  power  is  proof  of  its 
foundation  in  substantial  reality. 

So,  then,  we  do  not  reason  about  the  life  to  come ; 
we  know.  Merely  to  speculate  about  a  future  life 
seems  a  terrible  trifling  with  human  hearts.  Those 
who  feel  their  hearts  bound  up  now  as  much  as  ever 
with  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  entered  into  rest 
cannot  argue  about  immortality.  That  is  a  frightful 
insult  to  a  heart  that  bleeds  at  the  thought  of  what 
it  has  lost.  The  Church  does  not  argue.  To  those 
who  are  hungry  to  know  their  dead  again,  she  has  no 
controversy,  no  syllogisms,  no  hair  drawn  arguments, 
no  fine  spun  probabilities.  She  points  to  Her  Lord, 
who  rose  from  the  grave,  appeared  among  His  dis- 
ciples, tarried  with  them  forty  days  instructing  them 
in  the  affairs  of  His  Kingdom,  and  then  "while  they 
beheld  was  taken  up,  and  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of 
their  sight."  We  need  to  be  reasonably  assured  of 
the  fact  of  Christ's  resurrection  and  we  do  believe 
that  it  is  as  certainly  and  undeniably  established  as 
any  event  ever  recorded  in  history,  but  being  sure  of 
that  there  are  for  us  no  more  arguments.  When  we 
know  this,  we  know  all  the  rest. 

Yet  there  is  one  more  question:  Suppose  there  is 
a  future  life :  shall  we  enjoy  it,  shall  we  be  fitted  for 
it?    You  and  I — we  are  sinful;  we  know  our  utter 


270  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

"unworthiness :  how  can  we  ever  enter  upon  the  life 
of  eternity  in  the  presence  of  God?  We  to  whom 
prayer  is  so  hard,  who  with  difficulty  fix  the  mind 
for  a  few  moments  on  heavenly  things;  we  who  find 
devotion  a  task,  meditation  almost  an  impossibility — 
how  shall  we  be  made  ready  for  a  life  of  unending 
worship  and  adoration?  We  who  have  so  many  fail- 
ings and  shortcomings,  whose  hearts  are  so  easily 
filled  with  anger  or  resentment,  who  are  so  often 
jealous  or  envious  or  discontented,  who  are  so  quickly 
offended,  so  ready  to  find  fault;  we  who  live  in  the 
world  and  are  too  readily  satisfied  with  its  lower 
standards,  who  often  think  more  of  earthly  success 
than  of  the  heavenly  riches,  who  work  and  plan  for 
self,  with  so  little  thought  of  others;  we  who  have 
many  of  us  been  guilty  of  grosser  sins  that  sap  the 
spiritual  energies  and  leave  the  mind  a  prey  to  evil 
thoughts — ^how  shall  we  ever  become  possessors  of 
everlasting  life,  though  we  know  there  is  such  a  life? 
The  answer  lies  in  the  remembrance  that  He  who 
rose  and  ascended  was  victor  not  only  over  death  but 
over  sin.  He  for  whose  glorious  resurrection  we 
praise  God  at  Eastertide  is  "the  very  Paschal  Lamb 
that  was  offered  for  us,  and  hath  taken  away  the  sin 
of  the  world ;  who  by  His  death  hath  destroyed  death, 
and  by  His  rising  again  hath  restored  to  us  everlast- 
ing life."  He  lived  our  life — lived  it  in  perfect 
obedience — offered  the  sacrifice  that  we  could  not  offer 
ourselves  and  reconciled  us  to  God.  He  left,  too,  a 
fountain  for  sin  and  for  uncleanness.  He  gave  us  the 
germ  of  a  higher  and  better  life,  which  begins  to 


THE  CERTAINTY  OF  A  FUTURE  LIFE        271 

develop  in  us  here  and  now  if  we  but  accept  His  sacri- 
fice, use  His  grace,  and  seek  to  live  in  His  spirit 
— and  the  good  work  which  He  hath  begun  in  us  will 
continue  hereafter  in  never  ending  advancement  until 
at  last  we  wake  up  after  His  likeness  and  are  satis- 
fied. He  gives  us  the  assurance  of  heaven  hereafter ; 
but  He  does  even  more  than  that,  He  leads  the  way 
to  it,  and  pledges  us  His  help  on  the  journey. 

Oh  the  inspiration  of  it !  Life  has  for  us  a  new 
meaning,  work  has  a  new  incentive,  when  we  know 
that  there  is  something  to  hope  for,  something  to 
press  forward  to ;  that  the  prize  is  surely  there  to  be 
won.  To  be  assured  that  the  struggle  will  issue  in 
triumph — that  gives  spring  and  cheer  in  the  midst 
of  the  contest.  Though  I  fail  here,  I  must  keep  up 
my  courage,  some  day  I  shall  succeed ;  though  I  falter, 
then  I  shall  be  firm;  though  I  fall,  I  need  not  lose 
hope,  for  if  I  press  on  I  shall  at  last  stand  stead- 
fast. I  shall  have  life,  but,  more  than  that,  in  Christ's 
triumph  over  sin  and  armed  in  His  strength,  I  shall 
have  victory.  He  whom  I  try  to  follow  here  has  won 
for  me  and  even  now  helps  me.  There  I  shall  find 
Him  at  last,  and  rest  in  the  perfect  peace  that  succeeds 
the  strife  and  battle. 


272  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXX. 
THE  PROOF  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 

IF  Jesus  Christ  rose  from  the  dead^,  then  we  are  ab- 
solutely certain  of  the  life  of  the  world  to  come. 
But  did  Christ  rise?  What  are  the  grounds  of  our 
belief  in  that  stupendous  miracle?  The  subject 
would  demand  not  a  single  chapter,  but  an  entire 
book,  for  any  satisfactory  argument.  We  must  be 
content  with  a  few  homely,  common-sense  considera- 
tions such  as  will  appeal  to  the  average,  every-day, 
practical  man — the  kind  of  man  who  brings  to  bear 
upon  religious  problems  the  hard-headed  sense  which 
he  gives  to  every-day  problems  in  other  fields. 

In  seeking  for  a  practical,  common-sense  proof  of 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  let  us  first  of  all 
settle  one  thing  definitely.  This  Jesus  lived  and  died. 
There  was  such  a  Person.  Whatever  opinion  one 
may  hold  of  the  inspiration  of  Scripture  or  even 
of  the  genuineness  of  the  gospels,  one  cannot  think 
that  everything  told  of  Christ  is  pure  imagination. 
The  story  of  His  life  and  death  is  not  fictitious  in  its 
entirety.     Such  a  Person  did  live  and  He  did  die. 


THE  PROOF  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        273 

Well,  then,  let  us  start  from  this  point.  "He  was 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried."  It  is  very  important 
to  settle  that  fact  definitely.  He  died  after  a  public 
execution  and  was  buried  in  a  well-known  tomb. 
And  then  almost  immediately  His  disciples  began  to 
assert  that  He  had  risen  from  the  dead.  We  need  not 
trouble  to  examine  in  detail  their  accounts  of  the 
resurrection.  It  is  enough  for  our  present  purpose  to 
state  the  general  fact  that  the  apostles  did  assert  in 
plain  and  straightforward  language  that  their  Master 
had  risen;  they  proclaimed  this  far  and  wide  and 
declared  it  with  such  positive  conviction  that  many 
believed  what  they  said.  Christ  died  and  was  buried 
and  His  disciples  claimed  that  He  had  risen  again 
and  appeared  among  them.  There  is  no  disputing 
this  general  statement. 

Now  if  the  apostles  asserted  positively  that  their 
Lord  had  risen  from  the  grave  and  if  what  they  said 
was  not  true,  why  was  it  not  the  simplest  matter  in 
the  world  to  disprove  their  statements  by  producing 
the  dead  body  ?  Was  it  not  in  the  tomb,  and  if  not, 
where  was  it  and  how  had  it  disappeared? 

Those  who  do  not  accept  the  gospel  story  of  the 
resurrection  have  two  theories  by  which  to  answer  this 
question:  (1)  the  theft  theor}^,  and  (2)  the  theory 
of  resuscitation  after  a  swoon.  According  to  the  first 
the  disciples  stole  the  body.  This  argument  has  been 
generally  abandoned  in  our  day,  it  is  so  manifestly 
inconsistent  with  the  character  of  the  apostles. 
Allowing  for  a  moment  that  they  could  have  stolen 
the  body — though  the  tomb  was  guarded  and  they 


274  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

were  panic-stricken,  weak,  terrified,  huddled  together 
in  an  upper  room  with  the  doors  locked — allowing 
that  they  could,  can  we  possibly  suppose  that  they 
would  have  done  it?  Their  well-known  character, 
their  transparent  honesty  and  sincerity,  is  sufficient 
proof  to  the  contrary.  We  cannot  for  a  moment  be- 
lieve that  the  men  who  first  preached  the  gospel  were 
conscious  deceivers.  One  can  conceive  of  their  being 
mistaken,  but  to  suppose  that  they  were  deliberate 
imposters  is  inconceivable.  And  yet  the  theft  theory 
was  made  necessary  by  the  fact  of  the  death  and 
burial  and  the  subsequent  disappearance  of  the  body. 
This  evidently  was  gone  or  it  would  have  been  pro- 
duced, to  the  evident  confusion  of  the  apostles. 

Then  there  is  the  second  theory.  According  to 
this,  Christ  did  not  die;  He  merely  swooned  from 
exhaustion  and  when  laid  in  the  tomb  revived,  es- 
caped, and  appeared  to  His  disciples.  Afterward  He 
recovered  from  His  wounds,  and  His  credulous  fol- 
lowers mistook  His  return  for  a  resurrection  from 
the  dead. 

But  there  is,  first,  the  well-known  fact  of  the 
death,  which  in  the  case  of  a  public  execution  would 
surely  have  been  carefully  ascertained  and  certified. 
There  is,  again,  the  difficulty  as  to  how  a  weak,  faint, 
half-dead  man  could  have  escaped  from  the  tomb. 
And  there  is  the  further  consideration  that  a  very 
brief  acquaintance  with  such  a  man,  slowly  recovering 
from  weakness  and  wounds,  would  have  exploded  any 
notion  the  apostles  may  have  had  of  a  triumph  over 
death,  so  that  they  could  hardly  have  continued  to 


THE  PROOF  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        275 

preach  so  confidently  what  sober  second  thought  must 
have  convinced  them  was  untrue.  Moreover,  does  not 
this  theory  make  Christ  Himself  a  party  to  a  fraud? 
Surely,  even  if  His  return  had  deceived  the  apostles, 
He  could  not  have  been  deceived,  too,  or  could  not 
long  have  continued  so.  And  if  not,  could  He  have 
allowed  them  to  preach  a  monstrous  mistake?  Was 
He  that  manner  of  man  ?  Or  to  look  forward  a  little 
way  into  the  future — ^how  long  after  this  did  He  live  ? 
And  how  during  this  time  was  He  hidden?  And 
when  finally  His  death  came,  how  were  the  disciples 
still  deceived?  And  what  then  became  of  the  body? 
Surely  those  who  ask  us  to  accept  this  explanation  are 
putting  too  much  of  a  burden  on  our  plain,  every-day 
common  sense. 

The  two  theories  which  we  have  just  examined 
are  direct  attempts  to  explain  the  disappearance  of 
the  body  of  Christ.  They  do  it  by  trying  to  impeach 
the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  Christ  or  His  apostles. 
A  third  theory,  however,  proceeds  on  the  assumption 
of  the  absolute  integrity  of  the  disciples,  but  takes  for 
granted  that  they  were  credulous  and  self-deceived. 
This,  which  is  the  popular  modern  explanation  of  the 
facts,  we  may  call  the  vision  theory.  It  alleges  that 
the  followers  of  Christ  were  susceptible  to  any  strong 
wave  of  emotion  and  that  in  accepting  the  resurrec- 
tion they  were  simply  victims  of  an  hallucination. 
Mary  Magdalene,  according  to  this  theory,  while  in 
the  garden  in  an  hysterical,  overwrought  state  of 
mind,  thought  she  saw  a  vision  of  her  Master.     She 


276  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

communicated  her  mistaken  idea  to  the  apostles,  and 
they  readily  caught  the  frenzy  and  soon  fancied  that 
they,  too,  saw  the  risen  Christ.  Then,  honestly  believ- 
ing in  what  was  really  but  the  fruit  of  their  own  ex- 
cited imagination,  they  announced  everywhere  that 
their  Lord  was  alive.  Fanatical  enthusiasm  is  con- 
tagious, and  it  was  not  long  before  others  caught  the 
fever.  As  the  belief  grew  the  details  of  the  vision  be- 
came more  fixed  and  definite,  till  we  have  the  gospel 
tradition,  with  its  confusions  and  contradictions  still 
showing  the  evidence  of  its  origin. 

This  is  the  theory;  let  us  examine  it. 

Now,  first  of  all,  there  is  the  fact  that  the  apostles 
were  in  a  condition  absolutely  unfavorable  to  the 
origination  of  ghostly  visions.  They  were  depressed 
and  discouraged  to  the  point  of  despair.  "Such  hal- 
lucinations are  possible  only  when  suitable  mental 
conditions  are  present,  the  chief  of  which  are  ex- 
pectancy, prepossession,  and  fixed  idea."  These  were 
all  manifestly  wanting  with  the  apostles. 

Again,  consider  that  this  is  not  a  question  of  one 
or  two  visions  to  single  witnesses,  but  of  a  cloud  of 
visions  to  large  numbers  of  people.  Eemember,  too, 
that  these  claimed  not  only  to  see  Christ,  but  to  hear 
Him  and  touch  Him.  Moreover,  the  apostles'  con- 
viction of  the  resurrection  was  beyond  parallel  full 
of  results,  and  we  have  but  to  reflect  a  moment  to 
appreciate  the  invariable  impotency  of  ghost  stories. 
"At  first  sight  there  may  be  some  appearance  of  plau- 
sibility in  the  assertion  that  some  crazy  fanatic  mis- 
took a  creation  of  the  imagination  for  a  reality  and 


THE  PROOF  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        277 

persuaded  others  of  its  truth.  But  that  considerable 
numbers  of  persons  should  imagine  that  they  saw  a 
man  alive  again  after  he  had  been  publicly  crucified 
and  mistake  this  for  a  reality,  that  they  should  do 
this  on  several  occasions  separately  and  conjointly, 
and  that  they  should  found  a  great  institution  on 
its  basis,  is  an  assertion  which  makes  our  reason 
stagger."  ^ 

Can  we  imagine  a  crowd  of  men  seeing  a  vision — 
would  not  some  one  have  broken  the  illusion?  And 
if  they  spoke  to  the  ghost,  can  we  suppose  them  hear- 
ing the  spectre  answer  and  all  in  the  same  words? 
Or,  being  alike  deceived  into  this  belief,  thinking  too 
that  they  had  felt  him  by  a  touch  ?  Or,  admitting  all 
these  absurdities,  that  on  such  evidence  they  could 
have  convinced  any  rational  being  of  such  an  extraor- 
dinary statement  as  that  a  dead  man  had  come  to  life 
again — most  of  all,  that  they  could  have  won  over 
hundreds  and  thousands  to  the  impossible  notion? 
And  all  this  when  their  opponents  had  only  to  open 
the  tomb  and  show  the  dead  body,  in  order  to  expose 
the  absurdity  of  the  claim  ? 

We  get  back,  then,  to  the  fact  with  which  we 
started.  Christ  really  died  and  His  body  was  pub- 
licly buried.  ^\Tiere  was  that  body?  If  still  in  the 
tomb,  a  glance  at  it  would  have  pricked  like  a  bubble 
the  emotional  frenzy  of  His  disciples.  If  not  in  the 
tomb  but  in  the  possession  of  His  enemies,  they 
would  have  seen  to  it  that  the  illusion  was  quickly  dis- 


^  Row :  Reasons  for  Believing  in  Christianity. 


278  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

pelled  in  the  same  practical  fashion.  If  in  the  cus- 
tody of  His  friends,  how  did  it  get  there,  and  could 
the  disillusionizing  process  have  been  much  longer 
delayed?  No,  the  body  had  disappeared,  and  the 
cause  of  its  disappearance  was  that  Christ  had  really 
risen  from  the  dead. 

There  is,  then,  the  strongest  possible  proof  of  the 
resurrection,  apart  from  the  details  of  the  gospel 
narratives.  We  protest,  however,  against  discounting 
these  records.  If  they  be  rejected  because  of  appar- 
ent inconsistencies,  we  reply  that  in  any  event  of  to- 
day half  a  dozen  people  might  give  as  many  difPerent 
accounts  seemingly  contradictory  yet  perfectly  ca- 
pable of  being  reconciled  and  harmonized  by  one  who 
was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  facts.  Or  for 
any  who  doubt  the  genuineness  and  authenticity  of 
the  gospels,  we  may  point  to  the  witness  of  St.  Paul. 
There  are  four  of  his  epistles  which  even  by  skeptics 
are  universally  admitted  to  be  genuine,  and  were  there 
no  other  writings  these  four  books  show  conclusively 
that  the  apostles  believed  in  the  resurrection  of  their 
Lord  with  all  their  heart  and  soul. 

But,  as  hinted  above,  most  powerful  of  all  the 
arguments  for  the  resurrection  are  the  marvellous 
results  that  have  sprung  from  it.  How  shall  we  ex- 
plain the  wonderful  transformation  of  character  in 
the  apostles,  or  the  influence  of  the  doctrine  on  other 
lives,  or  such  a  miracle  as  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  ? 
Results,  again,  in  the  Christian  institutions  that  have 
survived  through  1900  years:     What  shall  we  say  of 


THE  PROOF  OF  THE  RESURRECTION        279 

the  celebration  of  Sunday  during  all  these  centuries  ? 
The  day  is  a  weekly  memorial  of  the  resurrection, 
and  as  such  has  supplanted  the  old  Sabbath.  Did 
the  change  originate  in  an  absurd  error?  And  what 
contributed  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  mistake? 
What,  again,  shall  be  said  of  baptism,  with  the  con- 
stant teaching  that  we  are  buried  into  Christ's  death, 
to  be  raised  into  newness  of  life  in  Him?  AVhat  of 
the  Holy  Communion — could  it  have  continued  as  the 
memorial  of  a  dead  friend,  if  that  Friend  had  not 
also  proved  Himself  the  Lord  of  life  ? 

And  what  of  the  Church?  Its  existence  is  the 
strongest  possible  proof  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.  Consider  "the  utter  impossibility  of  a 
belief  in  the  resurrection  having  arisen,  spread  widely, 
been  accepted  without  doubt,  and  becoming  the 
foundation  of  the  Christian  Church  on  any  other 
hypothesis  than  the  reality  of  the  fact.'' '  How,  but 
on  the  truth  of  the  Lord's  triumph  over  the  grave, 
shall  we  account  for  the  Church?  how  explain  its 
rapid  growth  out  of  a  state  of  depressing  bewilder- 
ment and  despair?  or  its  very  organization,  in  con- 
fidence and  enthusiastic  assurance  after  the  darkness 
of  doubt  and  disbelief?  ^^^lat  shall  we  say  of  its 
existence  through  the  ages,  if  it  be  not  a  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  this  on  which  all  its  work  and  all  its 
teaching  rested?  Can  all  the  Christian  life  of  the 
past  nineteen  centuries  have  been  based  on  a  delusion 
and  a  dream? 


-  Reasons  for  Believing  in  Christianity. 


280  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

How  long  does  it  take  to  prick  such  bubbles  of 
belief  in  these  days  ?  And  allowing  for  all  differences 
between  this  age  and  a  simpler  age  of  faith,  how  long 
would  it  have  taken  to  prick  such  a  bubble  after 
Christ's  death?  How  can  we  possibly  explain  the 
establishment  of  Christianity  on  anything  other  than 
a  foundation  of  absolute  certainty?  In  considering 
the  miracle  of  the  resurrection,  let  us  not  forget  the 
subsequent  miracle  of  the  Church  and  its  ordinances 
of  grace.    Could  they  have  been  based  on  a  delusion  ? 

Surely  not.  We  believe  in  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  Christ  because  nothing  less  than  this  great 
miracle  can  account  for  all  the  miraculous  results 
that  have  followed  in  its  train. 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  281 


XXXI. 
THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED 

THERE  is  hardly  any  subject  of  religious  thought 
that  holds  so  keen  an  interest  for  us  as  that  of 
the  condition  of  the  departed.  The  agony  of  the 
world  sorrow  has  made  it  a  bigger  problem  to-day 
than  ever  before.  Millions  of  homes  are  homes  of 
sorrow.  Week  after  week,  for  many  long  years,  the 
old  questions  have  been  asked  with  poignancy  of 
multiplied  grief.  Thousands  have  sought  for  the 
answers  to  them.  They  have  gone  to  mediums  and 
spiritualists  of  every  school  for  comfort  and  sure 
confidence.  A  great  scientist  has  written  a  pathetic 
book  to  tell  of  his  own  search  for  certainty.^ 

After  death — what?  We  must  all  face  death 
ourselves  sometime  and  we  know  not  how  soon. 
For  all  of  us  there  is  the  thought  of  others  who 
have  gone  before.  Those  friends  and  dear  ones  whom 
we  have  "loved  long  since  and  lost  awhile" — where 
are  they  now  ?  We  have  some  definite  idea  of  the  life  of 
the  world  to  come,  after  the  great  judgment  day,  when 


Sir  Oliver  Lodge:    Raymond. 


282  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

the  faithful  have  entered  upon  their  eternal  bliss; 
but  in  the  meanwhile,  before  the  time  comes  when  we 
and  they  shall  meet  face  to  face,  when  if  we  have 
been  faithful  we  shall  be  summoned  into  the  presence 
of  the  Master — in  the  meanwhile,  what  of  those  who 
wait  for  us  on  the  other  side  ?  Where  are  they  ?  what 
is  their  spiritual  condition  ?  They  are  asleep,  we  are 
told:  is  it  a  sleep  of  torpor?  or  are  they  conscious? 
are  they  active  ?  are  they  interested  in  us  ?  able  to  do 
anything  for  us  ?  Can  we  do  anything  for  them  ?  Do 
they  suffer?  or  are  they  at  peace?  How  strange  it 
is  that  men  have  sought  the  answers  to  such  questions 
everywhere  save  in  the  one  Book  in  which  they  might 
best  expect  to  find  them ! 

We  are  the  more  eager  to  know  the  answer  to  these 
questions  if  we  have  any  true  conception  of  what 
death  is.  So  often  we  soothe  our  souls  with  the 
thought  that  somehow  death  changes  at  once  the  char- 
acter of  those  we  know,  that  they  are  quite  different 
now  from  what  they  were  on  earth.  Yet  we  are  all 
imperfect,  all  to  some  degree  sinful,  and  death  can- 
not act  like  a  general  absolution,  making  us  ready  at 
once  for  our  new  life.  No,  whatever  more  we  may 
learn  about  death,  it  is,  first  of  all,  simply  the  passage 
from  this  world,  with  all  that  is  so  natural  and  famil- 
iar, to  another  world,  unfamiliar,  strange  and  unac- 
customed, with  sights  and  sounds  new,  and  it  cannot 
but  be  mysterious  and  awe-inspiring.  Our  bodies  we 
must  leave  behind  us  and  therefore  the  soul  must 
enter  this  new  abode  stripped  of  all  that  comes 
through  the  perception  of  the  senses.     What  must 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  283 

the  soul  feel,  then,  if  it  is  still  conscious,  at  being 
ushered  at  once  upon  a  world  of  which  we  know  so 
little? 

There  is  a  story  in  one  of  Canon  Liddon's  won- 
derful sermons  that  shows  the  great  and  solemn 
reality  of  this  change.'  An  Indian  officer,  who  in 
his  time  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  service  and  had 
taken  part  in  more  than  one  of  those  decisive  strug- 
gles by  which  the  British  authority  was  finally  estab- 
lished in  the  East  Indies,  had  returned  to  end  his 
days  in  England  and  was  talking  with  his  friends 
about  the  most  striking  experiences  of  his  profes- 
sional career.  They  led  him,  by  their  sympathy  and 
by  their  questions,  to  travel  in  memory  through  a  long 
series  of  years.  As  he  described  skirmishes,  battles, 
sieges,  personal  encounters,  hair-breadth  escapes,  the 
outbreak  of  the  mutiny  and  its  suppression,  reverses, 
victories — all  the  swift  alternations  of  anxiety  and 
hope  which  a  man  must  know  who  is  entrusted  with 
command  and  is  before  the  enemy — their  interest  in 
his  story,  as  was  natural,  became  keener  and  more 
exacting.  At  last  he  paused  with  the  observation, 
"I  expect  to  see  something  much  more  remarkable 
than  anything  I  have  been  describing."  As  he  was 
some  seventy  years  of  age  and  was  understood  to  have 
retired  from  active  service,  his  listeners  failed  to  catch 
his  meaning.  There  was  a  pause ;  and  then  he  said,  in 
an  undertone,  "I  mean  the  first  five  minutes  after 
death.'' 


Advent  in  St.  Paul's,  Vol.  II. 


284  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

The  phrase  showed  indeed  an  appreciation  of  the 
intense  and  awful  reality  of  the  new  life  and  it  will 
explain  why  questions  about  the  present  state  of  the 
departed  have  so  pressing  an  interest.  We  and  all 
these  others  are  to  stand  some  day  at  God's  judg- 
ment throne  and  we  hope  and  pray  that  the  voice 
will  sound  for  us,  "Come,  ye  blessed  of  My  Father." 
So  we  hope — but  even  so,  the  question  remains,  what 
of  their  state  in  the  meanwhile,  these  who  have  gone 
before?  They  are  our  dearest  and  our  best  and  we 
long  to  know  how  they  live  now  in  this  strange  coun- 
try over  whose  borders  they  have  just  stepped.  "What 
does  the  Bible  tell  us  of  the  present  state  of  the 
departed  ? 

First,  we  are  told  that  they  are  at  rest.  They  are 
released  from  the  body  with  its  distresses  and  sick- 
nesses and  so  they  are  freed  from  the  pain  and  dis- 
tractions that  darkened  their  last  hours  here.  Later, 
they  will  be  "clothed  upon"  with  a  new  body;  but 
now  they  are  free  spirits  and  they  are  at  rest,  because 
the  sick  and  tortured  frame  is  put  aside  till  the  day 
when  soul  and  body,  both  cleansed  and  sanctified,  are 
raised  into  newness  of  life.  "They  rest  from  their 
labors,"  too.  The  toils  and  the  hardships  of  life  no 
longer  oppress  them,  for  earth's  conflicts  have  ceased. 
And  they  are  free,  too,  from  anxiety  and  care;  they 
have  none  of  the  trials  and  difficulties  of  this  worldly 
life.  There  "God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears" ;  "sorrow 
and  sighing",  for  them,  are  no  more.  Most  of  all, 
they  are  at  rest  because  they  are  free  from  tempta- 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  285 

tion;  their  probation  is  over  and  the  subtle  attacks 
of  evil  can  no  longer  distress  them  and  keep  them 
back  from  God. 

Already,  then,  the  faithful  departed  are  at  rest. 
We  shall  see,  later,  that  they  have  not  yet  entered 
upon  the  bliss  of  heaven  in  the  vision  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity,  but  for  all  that  they  have  entered  upon  a 
spiritual  repose.  "Blessed  are  the  dead  who  die  in 
the  Lord:  Even  so  saith  the  Spirit;  for  they  rest 
from  their  labors." 

(2)  But  this  rest  is  not  an  unconscious  sleep. 
"Certainly  the  paradise  which  our  Lord  promised  to 
the  dying  thief  cannot  be  reasonably  imagined  to 
be  a  moral  and  mental  slumber,  a  condition  no  higher 
than  that  which  is  produced  by  chloroform."  So, 
again,  the  parable  of  Dives  and  Lazarus  shows  us 
men  in  the  waiting  time  after  death,  fully  conscious, 
quickened  in  thought  and  feeling  rather  than  dead- 
ened and  stupefied.  Such  hints  of  the  other  life 
as  we  have  in  the  appearance  of  Moses  and  Elijah 
at  the  Transfiguration,  or  in  the  cries  of  the  souls 
under  the  altar,  show  us  that  the  blessed  dead  are  far 
from  resting  in  unconscious  torpor. 

(3)  Not  only  is  the  present  life  of  the  departed 
a  conscious  existence,  it  is  also  a  life  of  intense 
activity.  Here  we  have  the  experience  of  our  Lord 
Christ  Himself  as  an  example  of  what  awaits  others 
in  their  present  abiding  place.  This  experience  is 
a  typical  one.  Our  Lord  was  true  man;  He  died  as 
man;  death  meant  for  Him,  as  for  us,  the  separation 
of  soul  and  body;  what  happened  to   Him  is,  we 


286  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

may  suppose,  recorded  to  show  us  what  will  happen 
to  others.  His  body  was  buried,  as  ours  will  be ;  but 
while  "He  was  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,"  He  was 
"quickened  in  the  spirit,  in  which  also  He  went  and 
preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison."  Afterward  soul 
and  body  were  reunited  at  His  resurrection.  The 
time  between  our  Lord's  death  and  His  resurrection, 
then,  was  a  time  of  spiritual  activity.  The  rest  of 
death — rest  from  the  toils,  trials,  and  sorrows  of 
earth — was  not  incompatible  with  occupation  that 
absorbed  the  life  of  the  spirit. 

And  so,  we  may  imagine,  it  will  be  for  us.  Those 
who  rest  from  their  labors  here  will  not  rest  in  the 
sense  that  they  have  nothing  to  do.  For  aught  we 
know,  they  also  will  be  "quickened  in  the  spirit"; 
their  life  will  be  a  life  of  intense  activity. 

On  what  work,  then,  are  they  engaged?  First 
their  activity  will  result  from  their  increasing  absorp- 
tion in  a  growing  knowledge  of  spiritual  things. 
Before  they  can  enter  upon  the  vision  of  God  they 
will  have  much  to  learn  of  Him  and  this  w^aiting 
time  will  be  filled  out  in  the  acquiring  of  a  deep  and 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  All-Holy  One.  Freed 
from  the  labors  of  this  temporal  existence,  their  ener- 
gies will  be  spent  in  securing  such  an  acquaintance 
of  God  as  was  impossible  for  them  in  this  life.  The 
difference  between  their  knowledge  of  God  after  death 
and  the  knowledge  they  had  before  will  correspond  to 
the  increase  of  knowledge  that  would  come  to  us  were 
we  able  to  see  one  of  our  earthly  acquaintances  in 
spirit.     We  know  them  now,  but  we  read  the  life  of 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  287 

the  soul  only  through  its  bodily  manifestation.  Sup- 
pose we  could  see  a  soul  unclothed — read  its  thought, 
know  its  motives,  have  its  inmost  emotions  unveiled — 
the  increase  of  real  knowledge  would  give  some  notion 
of  the  new  knowledge  of  God  that  will  be  ours  when 
we  are  ushered  upon  the  life  of  the  spirit. 

Again,  the  activity  of  the  soul  after  death  will 
result  from  the  work  that  it  must  do  for  self.  As 
they  learn  more  and  more  of  God,  so  will  the  departed 
be  learning  more  and  more  about  themselves.  All 
their  lives  will  pass  before  them  like  a  panorama,  so 
that  they  will  see  the  past  as  a  whole,  and  as  in  a 
mirror.  This  knowledge  will  bring  about  a  desire 
for  improvement  and  growth — and  we  may  be  sure, 
therefore,  that  the  souls  of  the  departed  will  be 
actively  engaged  in  their  own  purification  and  sanc- 
tification,  in  preparing  themselves  for  the  nearer 
presence  of  God  that  wdll  some  day  be  theirs. 

Possibly,  too,  their  spirits  will  be  laboring  actively 
for  others.  Who  knows  what  share  they  may  have, 
some  of  them,  in  helping  companions  in  the  middle 
state  towards  a  deeper  and  richer  life?  A  young 
priest,  of  pure  and  unselfish  spirit,  is  suddenly  taken 
from  earth,  when  he  has  hardly  yet  entered  fully  upon 
his  service  for  souls.  Who  knows  but  in  the  other 
world  he  may  be  permitted  to  join  in  the  labor 
which  His  Lord  began,  may  have  been  taken  that 
he,  too,  should  "go  and  preach  unto  the  spirits  in 
prison'^?  Or  who,  again,  can  tell  how  much  the 
prayers  of  the  faithful  may  work  for  us  who  are  still 
in  our  pilgrimage?     "Quickened  in  the  spirit,"  may 


288  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

not  their  petitions  rise  more  freely  to  the  throne  of 
grace,  and  may  not  a  devoted  wife  or  mother  or  hus- 
band or  father  do  more  in  this  new  sphere  than  could 
have  been  accomplished  in  life  here? 

(4)  That  will  answer  for  us  the  next  question, 
"Are  they  still  interested  and  concerned  about  us?" 
How  can  they  be  otherwise,  if  they  are  conscious? 
Surely  "death  does  not  break  up  the  community  of 
interests  that  are  eternal."  The  living  and  the  dead 
have  many  things  in  common;  we  who  are  still  alive 
and  they  who  have  gone  before  are  members  of  the 
same  great  family  and  the  same  love  stirs  in  us  as 
moved  us  before  our  separation  in  the  body.  If  we 
are  interested  in  them,  they  must  still  be  interested 
in  us,  still  praying  for  us,  still  succoring  us  in  ways 
that  are  past  finding  out.  We  are  not  told  how  much 
they  know  of  the  events  of  our  life,  how  much  they 
can  see  of  our  daily  walk,  but  they  must  be  able  to 
do  something  for  us  still — for,  whether  they  know 
much  or  little,  they  are  not  far  away,  but  very  close 
to  us.  "They  have  but  passed  from  one  room  into 
another  in  the  same  building  of  the  Lord;  one  and 
the  same  roof  is  still  over  us  and  them ;  they  are  in  a 
better,  brighter  quarter  of  the  same  great  Home  and 
House  of  Christ,  and  whatever  they  are  doing,  what- 
ever they  are  beholding,  whatever  they  are  enjoying, 
they  can  never  forget  us,  nor  cease  to  count  the  hours 
of  time  till  we  be  with  them."  ' 

Because  they  do  so  labor  and  pray  for  us,  it  has 


'  Morgan  Dix :   The  Communion  of  Saints. 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  289 

been  felt  that  we  may  ask  the  best  of  them  to  pray 
for  us  the  more.  Some  theologians  hold  that  the 
greatest  of  God's  holy  ones,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  the 
apostles  and  martyrs,  the  patriarchs  and  prophets, 
may  already  have  passed  to  the  Beatific  Vision,  but 
whether  this  be  true  or  not  their  prayers  can  avail 
much  for  us.  Why  should  we  not  call  upon  them  to 
remember  us  then,  it  may  be  asked.  We  have  no  cer- 
tain knowledge  that  they  hear,  it  is  true,  but  there 
may  be  means  of  spiritual  communication  of  which  we 
do  not  dream.  At  any  rate  there  have  always  been 
some  who  have  found  great  help  and  comfort  in 
thus  "invoking"  the  prayers  of  the  saints.  Our  own 
Church  has  been  careful  to  omit  the  practice  in  public 
worship,  because  of  the  practical  dangers  it  was  found 
to  involve ;  but  in  private  we  may  use  this  help,  if  we 
find  it  profitable  in  the  spiritual  life,  provided  we 
remember  always  that  we  "invoke"  the  prayers  of  the 
saints  who  are  gone  before,  just  as  we  would  "ask" 
for  the  prayers  of  a  good  man  or  woman  on  earth. 
Since,  however,  we  are  uncertain  that  they  hear,  it 
is  best  to  address  our  requests  to  God  only  and  to 
ask  Him  that  His  saints  may  pray  for  us  and  that 
their  petitions  may  be  of  avail  for  our  help. 

(5)  And  then,  since  most  of  the  departed,  at 
least,  are  still  waiting  for  their  future  blessedness, 
we  can  do  something  for  them  as  well  as  they  for  us. 
If  they  are  not  yet  made  perfect  and  if  their  pres- 
ent life  is  a  condition  of  growth  and  continued  prog- 
ress in  the  knowledge  of  self  and  of  God,  we  may 
strengthen  our  communion  with  them  by  praying  for 


290  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

their  increasing  advancement  in  the  divine  favor 
and  their  deepening  appreciation  of  the  divine  love. 
They  do  not  need  our  prayers  in  the  same  way  as  do 
others  who  are  still  in  their  earthly  probation ;  nor  do 
we  know  their  needs  as  we  know  those  of  our  earthly 
companions;  yet  we  may  freely  ask  for  them  what- 
ever may  be  necessary  for  their  progress,  feeling  even 
that  they  may  in  a  measure  depend  on  our  petitions 
just  as  those  in  this  world  need  our  prayers  and 
labors.  We  pour  out  our  hearts  in  prayer  for  the 
dead,  then,  and  thus  realize  our  unbroken  fellowship 
with  them.  Protestantism  makes  a  yawning  gulf 
between  the  living  and  the  dead.  We  must  bridge 
the  gulf.  Many,  indeed,  have  been  learning  to  bridge 
it  by  their  prayers  during  the  recent  years.  They 
have  refused  to  believe  that  the  souls  of  their 
friends  have  passed  beyond  the  need  of  their  care 
and  sympathy. 

For  thousands  of  years  such  prayers  have  been 
u$ed  by  Christians,  and  they  are  found  in  every 
liturgy  of  the  ancient  Church.  Hundreds  of  years 
before  Christ  they  were  in  use  among  the  Israelites. 
As  they  formed  a  part  of  the  worship  of  the  syna- 
gogue, our  Lord  Himself  and  His  apostles  must 
have  used  them;  at  any  rate  He  speaks  no  word  in 
condemnation  of  the  custom.  In  the  last  few  years 
the  sorrow  of  the  world  has  brought  thousands  back 
to  the  practice  of  the  Church  in  that  "age  of  faith". 

It  is  safe,  surely,  for  us  to  follow  that  practice 
and  to  make  more  real  our  remembrance  of  the 
departed    by    praying   for    them.      With    St.    Paul, 


THE  FAITHFUL  DEPARTED  291 

we  may  ask  for  them  "mercy  in  that  day".  With  the 
ancient  Church  we  may  ask  that  they  be  granted 
eternal  rest  and  that  light  perpetual  may  shine  upon 
them.  Our  connection  with  them  has  not  ceased 
and  until  we  and  they  alike  have  our  perfect  consum- 
mation and  bliss,  both  in  body  and  soul,  they  may 
need  our  prayers  as  we  need  theirs,  though  ours  for 
them  must  necessarily  be  less  definite  and  particular, 
because  we  know  so  little  of  their  special  needs.  Thus 
in  memorials  of  those  who  have  lived  and  died  in  the 
Lord,  in  loving  prayers  for  their  happy  progress, 
we  shall  remain  in  closer  communion  with  them  until 
we  who  are  now  in  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day 
join  them  in  the  rest  of  paradise.  In  that  hour  of 
death,  and  in  the  day  of  judgment,  by  Thy  cross  and 
passion.  Good  Lord,  deliver  us  I 


292  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 


XXXII. 

THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE 

AN"  English  chaplain  tells  of  a  young  soldier  who 
addressed  him  publicly  in  this  fashion:  "Sir, 
somebody  has  been  saying  back  home  that  a  man  who 
dies  for  his  country  goes  straight  to  heaven  whatever 
his  life  may  have  been  beforehand.  Do  you  think 
it  is  true?  If  a  chap  gives  his  life  in  this  way,  will 
he  be  all  right  on  the  other  side,  even  if  he  hasn't 
been  quite  straight  here,  or  will  he  have  to  go  to 
hell  ?"  ^  What  struck  the  chaplain  was  not  merely  the 
naive  simplicity  of  the  question  but  a  certain  wistful- 
ness  behind  it.  He  told  the  questioner  that  we  might 
trust  God  about  it. 

Here  lie  I,  Martin  Elginbrodde : 
Hae  mercy  on  my  soul,  Lord  God; 
As  I  would  do,  were  I  Lord  God, 
And  ye  were  Martin  Elginbrodde. 

That  is  the  way  an  old  epitaph,  in  the  north  of 
Scotland  puts  it.  The  chaplain  also  urged  that 
usually  the  issue  was  not  quite  so  sharp  as  the  ques- 
tion had  made  it.      Few  of  us  are  fit  for  highest 


Campbell:  The  War  and  the  Soul. 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE  293 

heaven  and  few  of  us  are  bad  enough  for  the  deepest 
hell. 

In  the  Church's  doctrine  of  the  Intermediate  State 
we  have  the  real  answer  to  difficulties  like  this — diffi- 
culties which  some  voice  only  hesitatingly^  which 
others  put  forth  rather  brazenly  and  flippantly,  which 
all  of  us  feel  more  or  less  keenly.  In  the  last  chapter 
it  was  taken  for  granted  that  men  do  not  go  at  once 
after  death  to  their  final  abiding  place,  but  that  there 
is  this  intermediate  state  where  even  the  most  faithful 
of  the  departed  must  wait  until  they  are  made  ready 
for  fulness  of  life  in  God's  presence. 

It  has  been  supposed,  possibly,  by  some  who  do  not 
accept  this  teaching,  that  since  it  postpones  the  day 
of  complete  blessedness  for  the  departed  it  must  de- 
tract in  some  measure  from  our  Christian  consolation 
in  the  hour  of  death.  If  we  examine  the  subject 
more  closely,  however,  we  shall  see  that  the  Church 
view,  far  from  taking  away  our  confidence  and  cer- 
tain hope  when  we  are  called  upon  to  part  with  loved 
ones,  is  really  in  numberless  cases  full  of  the  greatest 
possible  comfort.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  must  not 
those  who  think  that  after  death  the  righteous  soul 
goes  at  once  to  heaven  be  staggered  at  tracing  this 
idea  to  its  logical  negative  and  contemplating  the  fate 
of  those  who  cannot  without  great  straining  of 
language  be  numbered  among  the  faithful  ? 

For,  after  all,  what  sort  of  people  are  the  great 
majority  of  those  at  whose  graves  we  say  the  final 
prayers  of  committal?  How  few  of  them,  even  on 
the  most  charitable  view  of  the  case,  can  be  thought 


294  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

of  as  in  any  degree  fit  for  heaven !  Weak,  wavering, 
sinful  souls  many  of  them  were,  having  some  good 
qualities,  it  is  true,  but  very  imperfect  and  very  un- 
worthy to  enter  into  the  presence  of  their  Creator. 
Such  goodness  as  they  have  is  rather  in  germ,  often 
wholly  undeveloped  and  incomplete.  They  are  not 
among  those  who  have  wilfully  and  absolutely  rejected 
God  (though  perhaps  some  of  them  have  come  peril- 
ously near  it)  and  so  we  trust  they  are  not  among 
the  finally  unpenitent  or  lost,  but  if  the  choice  must 
be  made  then  and  there  in  their  present  state,  apart 
from  the  hope  of  future  development  and  progress  in 
holiness,  who  could  say  that  there  was  much  hope  of 
heaven  for  them  ? 

And  then  that  multitude  of  souls  who  have  never 
had  our  Lord  and  His  redemptive  work  properly 
presented  to  them,  the  heathen,  the  dwellers  in  the 
slums  of  a  great  city,  the  ignorant  and  uninstructed 
everj^where — what  about  them?  If  there  is  no 
chance  that  somewhere  they  may  be  subjected  to  a 
purifying  process  and  developed  in  the  life  of  grace, 
we  can  have  little  hope.  But  if  it  is  believed  that 
there  is  such  a  place  and  such  a  hope,  then  perhaps 
God  will  accept  them,  since  they  have  never  delib- 
erately and  absolutely  rejected  Him,  because  He 
finds  in  them  at  least  the  beginnings  of  goodness,  seed 
that  is  undeveloped  but  may  grow  in  another  field 
under  the  watchful  care  of  His  saints  and  angels.  If 
they  must  enter  at  once  into  life  or  else  be  reserved 
for  death,  could  our  hope  be  as  strong  or  our  hearts 
as  free  to  trust  that  all  will  be  well  ? 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE  295 

This  it  is  that  sometimes  leads  those  who  have 
been  brought  up  under  the  ordinary  Protestant  in- 
fluence to  revolt  from  what  they  erroneously  believe 
to  be  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  judgment.  Seeing 
how  few  there  are  for  whom  we  may  have  any  reason- 
able hope  of  an  immediate  entrance  into  heaven  and 
yet  shrinking  from  the  consignment  of  such  imperfect 
souls  to  Satan,  they  have  been  led  to  provide  a  merci- 
ful solution  of  the  problem  by  denying  altogether 
everlasting  punishment  or  resting  in  the  hope  that  for 
such  as  these  there  is  another  probation  after  death. 
In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  consider  eternal  loss  and 
shall  see  how  little  logic  there  is  in  wholly  reject- 
ing it  if  we  yet  hold  to  a  belief  in  the  divine 
knowledge  of  our  Lord  Christ,  who  apparently  asserts 
its  awful  reality.  As  for  the  other  solution — a  proba- 
tion after  death — the  doctrine  of  the  Intermediate 
State  solves  the  difficulty  without  resorting  to  any 
such  uncertain  theory. 

The  Bible,  as  interpreted  by  the  Church,  would 
seem  to  show  that  probation  ends  with  death.  We 
are  constantly  taught  that  this  period  of  our  earthly 
life  is  our  time  of  trial  and  testing  and  that  there  is 
no  other.  Indeed,  to  suppose  that  men  in  some 
future  state  might  change  from  a  life  predominantly 
evil  to  one  that  is  good  would  imply  that  others  might 
be  in  danger  of  changing  from  good  to  evil — and 
death  would  have  greater  terrors  for  us  than  now. 
Quite  different  is  a  belief  in  the  Intermediate  State, 
yet  quite  as  comforting  for  those  who  fear  for  them- 
selves or  their  friends.     It  teaches  that  God  in  His 


296  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

goodness  accepts  the  soul  at  death  not  for  what  it 
actually  has  become  but  for  what  it  will  become,  not 
because  it  is  developed  in  goodness  but  because  the 
seeds  of  goodness  are  there  and  are  not  so  choked  by 
the  evil  as  to  be  incapable  of  growth.  As  we  stand 
at  the  grave  of  some  weak  brother  whose  life  wavered 
so  uncertainly  between  right  and  wrong,  we  may  have 
fresh  hope;  we  may  believe  that  when  he  departed 
this  life  he  was  (taking  things  at  large  and  on  the 
whole)  upon  the  right  side.  There  was  more  of  good 
than  evil  in  him,  his  tendency  was  upward  rather 
than  downward,  and  though  he  was  very  imperfect 
God  mercifully  took  him  as  he  was,  to  develop  the 
good  in  him  till  he  should  be  prepared  for  the  eternal 
life.  This  does  not  mean  that  he  is  to  have  a  second 
probation,  but  that,  taking  it  all  in  all,  he  stood  his 
probation  here  and  that  now  in  a  place  of  preparation 
the  evil  is  gradually  to  be  purged  away  so  that  he 
may  be  made  fit  for  heaven.  So,  those  who  have 
never  heard  the  gospel  or  to  whom  it  has  never  been 
preached  aright  or  whose  environment  has  made  it 
impossible  that  they  should  have  ears  to  hear  it — such 
are  judged  according  to  the  light  they  had,  and  they 
too  need  no  new  probation,  only  the  carrying  on  and 
developing  of  what  such  probation  as  they  had  has 
made  them  here. 

Indeed,  of  heaven  itself  we  are  not  told  that  it 
will  be  one  dead  level  of  happiness — there  may  be 
degrees  of  blessedness.  In  the  Father's  house  are 
many  mansions  and  some  of  these  may  be  the  final 
abode  of  the  most  saintly,  some  the  abode  of  those 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE  297 

who  never  attained  such  heights  of  holiness.  Allow- 
ing for  all  that  and  believing  that  in  the  Intermediate 
State  each  soul  is  preparing  for  its  own  place  in  the 
heavenly  mansions,  we  may  have  hope  for  many  of 
whom  we  should  otherwise  despair. 

It  may  be  urged  that  such  arguments  lead  to  an 
easy-going  attitude  towards  sin  and  encourage  men 
in  carelessness  and  indifference  of  living,  but  the  ex- 
perience of  those  who  have  put  much  stress  on  it  in 
their  teaching  is  the  very  opposite.  Eather,  it  gives 
men  hope  and  arouses  a  greater  perseverance  in  some 
who  might  otherwise  rebel  or  despair.  Instead  of 
despondently  giving  up  the  struggle  they  take  fresh 
courage ;  they  know  they  are  not  saints,  but  they  have 
in  this  teaching  a  new  incentive  to  make  the  best  they 
can  of  the  remaining  years  of  life,  even  though 
obliged  to  battle  continually  against  old  habits  and 
besetting  sins. 

Perhaps  it  would  have  been  well,  before  saying  all 
this,  if  we  had  stated  as  briefly  as  possible  our  grounds 
for  believing  in  the  Intermediate  State.  The  argu- 
ments in  reason  have  already  been  shown  by  implica- 
tion, viz. :  that  even  those  who  die  in  grace,  however 
holy  their  lives  may  have  been,  are  by  no  means  pre- 
pared to  enter  at  once  upon  the  joys  of  the  heavenly 
life  and  rest  in  the  perpetual  contemplation  of  the 
Ever-blessed  Triune  God.  They  need  to  be  purged 
most  thoroughly  from  the  sins  that  defiled  their  souls 
during  life,  they  need  much  progress  in  holiness, 
before  they  can  enter  the  divine  presence. 


298  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

As  to  the  evidence  of  Scripture  (for  of  course  we 
know  nothing  about  it  except  what  revelation  teaches 
and  reason  accepts)  St.  Paul  has  several  passages 
which  imply  the  thought.  We  need  not  dwell  upon 
these  for  it  is  enough  that  our  own  hearts  tell  us  that 
before  we  enter  into  glory  we  must,  of  necessity,  dwell 
for  a  time  in  some  place  of  purification  waiting  till 
our  souls  have  been  made  fit  for  the  Master. 

There  are  several  Scripture  passages,  however, 
which  we  can  hardly  pass  over.  For  example:  On 
the  cross,  a  moment  before  his  death,  the  penitent 
thief  pleaded  for  mercy,  and  our  Lord  answered  him, 
"To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  Me  in  paradise."  Did 
He  mean  that  the  thief  was  to  go  at  once  to  heaven? 
In  the  first  place,  our  Lord  Himself  did  not  ascend 
thither  until  more  than  forty  days  later ;  in  the  second 
place,  that  one  act  of  penitence,  though  it  brought  the 
sinner  pardon,  did  not  prepare  him  to  enter  im- 
mediately the  inner  presence  chamber  of  God's  house. 
"To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  Me  in  paradise"  evidently 
therefore  refers  to  his  presence  with  Christ  in  some 
intermediate  abode  of  the  blessed  dead. 

So  of  our  Lord  Himself  an  experience  is  related 
that  bears  on  the  question.  Being  perfect  man, 
Christ  went  through  all  that  happens  to  men  at  their 
death.  His  body  was  buried;  His  human  soul  went 
to  some  waiting  place  of  the  departed;  on  Easter 
morning  His  soul  and  body  were  reunited,  and  He 
arose  and  appeared  among  men,  bringing  them  a 
pledge  and  token  that  their  souls  and  bodies  would  be 
reunited  and  that  they  would  rise  too.     St.  Peter  tells 


THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE  299 

us  that,  put  to  death  in  the  flesh.  He  revived  in 
spirit,  i.e.,  in  the  soul  as  contrasted  with  the  body, 
and  in  the  spirit  He  went  to  the  place  of  departed 
spirits,  the  souls  in  safe  custody,  and  to  them  pro- 
claimed the  glad  tidings  of  redemption.  Even  after 
He  had  risen  from  the  grave  He  did  not  go  at  once 
to  heaven,  but  said  of  Himself,  "I  am  not  yet 
ascended  unto  My  Father." 

What  our  Lord  tells  us,  moreover,  in  the  parable 
of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  shows  us  that  the  right- 
eous immediately  after  death  go  not  to  heaven,  but  to 
some  temporary  resting  place.  Lazarus  reposes  in 
"Abraham's  bosom"  until  the  general  day  of  judg- 
ment— which  has  not  yet  come,  since  the  rich  man 
speaks  of  his  brethren  as  still  in  their  earthly 
probation. 

The  thought  of  the  Intermediate  State  (or  par- 
adise or  purgatory,  if  one  prefers  to  call  it  either) 
will  show  us  why  the  Church  has  always  believed  in 
the  eflBcacy  of  prayers  for  the  dead.  The  life  after 
death  is  a  time  of  further  discipline  and  progress, 
where  those  who  are  saved  are  subjected  to  some  puri- 
fying process  to  prepare  them  for  heaven.  For  this, 
then,  our  prayers  may  help  them.  Any  petitions  we 
make  could  not  aid  them  were  they  lost ;  such  prayers 
they  no  longer  need  as  a  stay  against  temptation;  but 
they  may  need  them  (and  we  have  every  reason  to 
believe  will  be  helped  by  them)  in  the  way  of  advanc- 
ing their  spiritual  growth  and  development.  It  is 
for  such  purposes  that  our  prayers  are  offered  for 


300  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

those  who  are  gone  before — that  they  may  have  light, 
peace,  rest,  refreshment,  growth  in  the  divine  favor, 
increasing  knowledge  of  the  divine  love.  "Grant 
them,  0  Lord,  eternal  rest,  and  let  light  perpetual 
shine  upon  them."  Because  in  measure  all  men  die 
with  something  yet  to  be  done  for  their  souls,  with 
some  light  still  needed,  with  something  of  spiritual 
progress  necessary,  therefore  for  all  men  prayers  after 
death,  somewhat  vague  and  indefinite  as  they  must 
be,  will  yet  accomplish  good  and  will  bring  aid  and 
succor  there,  as  they  give  it  here.  He  who  began  a 
good  work  in  us  not  only  carries  it  on  during  this 
earthly  life  but  will  continue  it  until  the  great  day, 
"the  day  of  Jesus  Christ."  It  cannot  be  unavailing 
to  offer  our  prayers  in  aid  of  this  good  work  and  to 
omit  to  do  so  would  be  "to  imply  that  all  connection 
between  the  departed  and  ourselves  had  ceased,  than 
which  nothing  could  be  more  untrue." 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  301 


XXXIII. 
HEAVEN  AND  HELL 

1  TRUST  it  will  not  be  thought  flippant  if  I  start 
this  chapter  by  reminding  my  readers  that  a  good 
many  of  us,  for  more  than  four  years  past,  have  been 
puzzling  ourselves  over  the  question  as  to  what  would 
be  a  just  and  righteous  thing  to  do  to  the  group  of 
men  who  were  responsible  for  the  unspeakable  out- 
rages against  humanity  which  marked  the  Prussian 
conduct  of  the  war.  Just  what  would  be  a  fitting 
place  in  which  to  put  them  or  a  fitting  sentence  to 
inflict  upon  them?  What  ought  to  become  of  those 
who  deliberately  planned  the  devastation  of  Poland 
and  Armenia,  the  ruin  of  Serbia,  the  outrage  against 
Belgium,  the  barbarism  in  northern  France?  What 
punishment  would  be  considered  adequate  for  those 
who  were  morally  responsible  for  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  the  murder  of  Edith  Cavell,  the  crucifixion 
of  captured  soldiers,  the  enslavement  of  industrial 
workers,  the  ravishing  of  women,  the  mutilation  of 
children,  the  deliberate  destruction  of  property  apart 
from  war  necessities,  the  ruin  of  churches,  the  defile- 


302  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ment  of  altars  and  the  host  of  other  horrors  that 
marked  the  war? 

At  this  time  it  may  be  best  that  these  things  shall 
be  forgotten  rather  than  avenged,  but  who  can  forget 
them,  who  in  this  generation  ever  will  forget  them? 
Certainly  it  does  not  become  us  to  single  out  individ- 
uals (for  we  cannot  tell  degrees  of  responsibility  and 
guilt)  and  consign  them  to  punishment.  That  is  not 
what  I  mean.  I  am  only  trying  to  say  that  for  four 
years,  whether  we  ought  to  have  done  it  or  not,  we 
have  been  asking  questions  like  this  and  we  have 
answered  them  in  the  most  astonishing  possible  way, 
considering  that  we  are  a  people  who  had  come  to 
believe  in  a  loose,  lax,  kindly,  benevolent  deity  whose 
sense  of  righteous  wrath  was  wholly  lost  in  His  undis- 
criminating  affection. 

Well,  then.  All  this  is  introductory  to  the 
thought  that  there  are  people  in  the  world — never 
mind  who  or  how  many — but  there  are  some  of  whom 
we  can  have  little  hope  that  they  will  ever  be  fit  for 
heaven.  It  is  somewhat  surprising  to  find  those  who 
have  steadily  refused  to  face  difficult  facts  now  sud- 
denly become  most  violent,  pronouncing  emphatic 
judgment  where  it  is  best  to  speak,  if  we  must  speak, 
only  with  hesitancy  and  reserve.  The  fact  is,  the  war 
atrocities  have  opened  our  eyes  to  the  awfulness  of 
unrepented  sin  and  forced  us  to  consider  what  may 
be  the  final  issue  of  such  impenitent  guilt.  We 
cannot  decide  in  any  individual  case,  and  so  long  as 
life  remains  we  continue  always  to  hope ;  but  there  are 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  303 

some,  apparently,  in  whom  all  good  is  extinguished. 
We  can  hardly  escape,  then,  the  thought  of  hell  as  a 
place  of  punishment  for  the  wicked. 

If  it  be  asked  how  we  reconcile  the  existence  of 
such  a  place  or  state  of  everlasting  punishment  with 
belief  in  the  goodness  of  God,  we  answer  that  there 
are  many  things  which  we  cannot  expect  to  under- 
stand fully  here  and  that  this  is  one  of  them.  We 
need  not  be  ashamed  to  say  of  this  as  of  other  things, 
"I  do  not  know.^' 

One  thing,  however,  we  should  remember:  that 
what  we  are  told  of  everlasting  punishment  comes 
from  the  lips  of  our  Lord  Christ  Himself.  It  is  not 
in  the  Old  Testament  only,  with  its  stern  views  of 
God's  justice,  that  we  find  the  doctrine,  it  is  in  His 
teaching  also.  He  to  whom  we  owe  all  we  know  of 
a  future  life,  He  who  showed  such  tender  pity  toward 
the  weakness  of  men,  taught  with  the  utmost  solem- 
nity that  a  terrible  doom  was  impending  on  sinners. 
Because  they  were  lost  He  came  to  save  them,  and  if 
in  spite  of  all  that  He  did  there  were  yet  some  who 
were  hardened  against  the  divine  grace  until  good  be- 
came evil  to  them  and  evil  good.  He  said  that  they 
might  be  found  guilty  of  a  sin  such  as  "shall  not  be 
forgiven  either  in  this  world  or  in  the  world  to  come." 
If  it  was  possible  for  such  words  to  fall  from  the  lips 
of  Him  who  is  Love  Incarnate,  it  behooves  us  to 
approach  the  subject  with  humble  mind.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  mystery  of  evil,  an  outgrowth  of  the  gift  of 
free  will,  and  our  finite  minds  are  incapable  of  under- 
standing fully  what  stretches  back  to  the  creation  and 


304  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

on  through  eternity.  If,  however,  the  doctrine  was 
not  an  impossible  one  to  Jesus  Christ,  with  all  His 
love.  His  mercy.  His  purity  of  soul,  it  need  not  be 
rejected  by  us,  as  incompatible  with  divine  love.  We 
should  remember  that  our  minds  are  clouded  with  sin, 
our  hearts  sullied  by  repeated  acts  of  rebellion  against 
God.  We  are  hardly  capable  of  deciding  for  ourselves 
moral  issues  on  which  the  All-Holy  One  has  pro- 
nounced decision.  If  He  could  say,  in  words  so 
solemn  in  their  awful  self-restraint,  "It  had  been 
good  for  that  man  if  he  had  not  been  born,"  we  must 
believe  that  in  some  way  a  fate  so  pronounced  is  quite 
consistent  with  perfect  love  and  justice. 

We  must  bear  in  mind,  too,  that  God  cannot  be 
charged  with  the  fate  of  the  finally  impenitent.  He 
"will  have  all  men  to  be  saved,  and  to  come  unto  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth."  If  there  are  some  who  do 
perish  it  will  not  be  for  any  lack  of  effort  on  His  part 
to  prevent  the  calamity.  All  that  divine  love  can  do 
to  hold  back  the  sinner  from  his  fate,  will  be  done, 
we  may  be  sure.  None  will  be  lost  whom  God  could 
save  without  destroying  His  own  gift  of  free  will.  In 
other  words,  the  punishment  of  the  lost  will  be  in- 
herent rather  than  retributive.  In  the  case  of  a  child 
who  obstinately  and  persistently  continues  in  dis- 
obedience a  certain  alienation  results  which  of  itself 
is  a  punishment.  The  parent  still  loves  the  child  and 
still  yearns  for  his  return,  but  the  child,  by  his  own 
wilfulness,  cuts  himself  off  from  the  blessing  that 
might  be  his  and  inflicts  upon  himself  his  own  punish- 
ment.    He  is  wilfully  in  a  state  of  separation,  and  his 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  305 

self-inflicted  punishment  must  last  so  long  as  this 
alienation  endures. 

Nor  are  we  to  confuse  the  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment  with  theories  of  men  as  to  who  will  un- 
dergo this  awful  fate  or  the  number  of  the  lost  or 
the  character  of  their  punishment.  Of  all  this  we 
know  but  little.  We  are  not  intended  to  know  more 
or  it  would  have  been  revealed  to  us.  The  late  Dr. 
Paget  reminds  us  that  whoever  may  be  in  the  abode 
of  the  lost  will  contain  and  maintain  its  dreadful 
secret  within  himself  and  no  one  will  he  in  hell  who 
would  not  bring  hell  ivith  him  wherever  he  ivent.  As 
just  said,  the  punishment  will  be  inherent  and  self- 
inflicted.  Dr.  Paget  gives  an  illustration^  to  show 
something  of  what  hell  is.  Think,  he  says,  of  a  man 
with  a  downright  bad,  ill-conditioned  heart,  coming 
home  one  evening  from  a  place  where  he  has  been 
engaged  in  some  vile,  mean,  degrading  sin — coming 
home  with  his  mind  full  of  horrid  lust  and  sullenness. 
His  wife  is  waiting  for  him.  She  has  tried  to  make 
the  room  look  as  bright  as  she  can.  Two  of  his  chil- 
dren are  staying  up  to  kiss  him  and  say  good-night  to 
him  before  they  go  to  bed.  As  soon  as  he  opens  the 
door  he  sees  all  the  love  that  is  waiting,  bright  and 
true  and  tender,  to  bid  hun  welcome,  but  it  only 
hardens  his  cruel  heart.  He  hates  it  all  for  being  so 
unlike  himself;  hates  it  for  leaving  him  nothing  to 
grumble  at;  hates  it  because  he  has  no  love  in  him 
with  which  to  meet  it.     He  scowls  at  the  children  and 


^  Oxford  House  Papers,  first  series,  chapter  viii. 


306  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

curses  his  wife  and  then  sits  down  by  the  fire  to  spend 
his  time  in  sulky  silence  and  vile  thoughts  and  stupid, 
senseless  rage.  Who  is  to  blame  for  it?  Anyhow, 
not  the  wife.  Now,  just  imagine  a  heart  settled  down 
utterly  and  deliberately  into  such  a  temper;  a  heart 
that  has  finally  stamped  out  of  itself  all  lingering 
traits  or  movements  of  tenderness;  a  heart  in  which 
there  remains  no  faculty,  no  power  of  really  loving 
anything  at  all.  What  can  such  a  heart  do,  but  only 
go  on  and  on  in  the  black  despair  and  misery  of  per- 
petual hatred?  And  how  can  such  misery  ever  have 
an  end  ?  And  what  is  this  but  hell  ?  And  who  is  to 
blame  for  it?     Anyhow,  not  Almighty  God. 

In  other  words,  what  God  judges  and  condemns 
is  character.  No  man  is  rejected  because  he  did  this 
or  that.  His  condemnation  is  based  on  the  fact  that 
he  has  become  what  he  is;  and  he  is  not  finally  lost 
until  he  has  so  degenerated  that  he  can  never  become 
anything  else. 

In  this  we  see  something  of  what  the  final  judg- 
ment will  be.  There  is  a  particular  judgment  at  the 
hour  of  death  for  each  individual  when  his  or  her  fate 
is  determined,  but  in  the  final  judgment  this  sentence 
will  be  published  and  made  known  to  all  men  and  so 
plainly  set  forth  that  all  will  see  how  inevitable  was 
the  decree.  The  last  great  judgment  will  be  the  rev- 
elation of  all  of  God's  purposes  from  the  beginning. 
We  shall  see  that  God's  hand  has  been  over  all  things ; 
we  shall  know  why  He  permitted  evil  to  exist;  we 
shall  understand  why  He  judges,  and  how;  we  shall 
realize  His  absolute  goodness  and  justice.     If  some 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  307 

are  lost,  it  will  be  made  plain  that  lives  such  as  theirs 
could  have  had  no  other  issue.  If  endless  punish- 
ment, rather  than  annihilation,  be  their  fate,  it  will  be 
apparent  that  characters  are  judged,  not  deeds,  that  it 
is  not  what  we  have  done  but  what  we  are  that  makes 
judgment  necessary — and  what  we  are  we  shall  al- 
ways be.  The  condemnation  of  the  wicked  may  mean 
simply  that  they  are  left  to  themselves  to  remain  as 
they  are  forever.  "He  that  is  unjust,  let  him  be  un- 
just still,  and  he  that  is  filthy  let  him  be  filthy  still, 
and  he  that  is  righteous  let  him  be  righteous  still,  and 
he  that  is  holy,  let  him  he  holy  still." 

I  have  written  thus  far  as  my  own  reason  inter- 
prets revelation  and  as  I  believe  the  mind  of  the 
Church  in  the  past  has  interpreted  it.  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  my  heart  rebels  against  some  of  the 
things  my  head  accepts.  I  have  no  quarrel  with 
others  who  read  things  differently;  1  wish  I  could 
read  them  otherwise  myself. 

Yet  I  do  not  believe  that  the  teaching  of  Scripture 
about  the  punishment  of  the  impenitent  is  the  real 
difficulty.  It  is  not  so  much  what  is  to  be  done  with 
evil  that  troubles  me.  It  is  rather  the  fact  that  evil 
was  ever  permitted  to  be.  That  problem  has  been  dis- 
cussed in  a  previous  chapter  and  if  I  made  myself 
clear  there  it  was  evident  that  I  felt  we  must  be  con- 
tent to  leave  the  problem  as  an  unsolved  mystery.  So 
it  is  with  the  question  of  the  end  of  the  wicked.  I 
am  leaving  it  unsolved.  For  myself  I  am  content  to 
confess  ignorance;  I  am  willing  not  to  know.     With 


308  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

those  whose  course  of  reasoning  is  other  than  my  own, 
I  do  not  dispute.  As  to  all  that  I  conscientiously 
believe  the  thought  of  the  Church  has  permitted  I 
may  best  quote  one  of  her  greatest  scholars  and 
theologians : "" 

"The  universalism  which  is  so  popular  to-day — 
the  belief  that  every  created  spirit  must  ultimately  be 
recovered  to  fulfil  the  end  of  its  being  in  God — though 
it  is  supported  by  some  early  Christian  authorities 
and  though  it  has  never  been  formally  condemned  by 
the  Church  with  any  ecumenical  judgment,  is  flatly 
contrary,  plainly  contrary,  to  the  language  used  by 
our  Lord  about  the  destinies  of  men  and  generally  to 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament.  I  do  not  think, 
however,  that  by  excluding  universalism  we  are  ab- 
solutely shut  up  into  the  almost  intolerable  belief  in 
unending  conscious  torment  for  the  lost.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  Bible  does  not  necessarily  suggest  this. 
I  do  not  think  that  it  supplies  us  with  any  ground  for 
the  dogma  that  the  consciousness  of  a  man  once 
created  is  indestructible.  Final  moral  ruin  may  in- 
volve, I  cannot  but  think,  such  a  dissolution  of  per- 
sonality as  carries  with  it  the  cessation  of  personal 
consciousness.  In  this  way  the  final  ruin  of  irre- 
trievably lost  spirits,  awful  as  it  is  to  contemplate, 
may  be  found  consistent  with  St.  Paul's  anticipation 
of  a  universe  in  which  ultimately  God  is  to  be  all  in 
all — which  does  not  seem  to  be  really  compatible  with 
the  existence  of  a  region  of  everlastingly  tormented 


^Gore:  The  Religion  of  the  Church,  p.  83. 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  309 

and  rebellious  spirits — while  at  the  same  time  the 
awful  warnings  of  our  Lord  and  His  apostles  as  to  the 
inevitable  consequences  of  wilful  final  sin  supply,  to 
every  one  who  chooses  to  think  at  all,  a  most  powerful 
motive  to  prefer  any  effort  to  the  risk  of  ^losing  his 
own  souF." 

It  will  be  well  to  let  this  subject  rest  in  the  mys- 
tery in  which  it  is  left  by  God  and  to  consider  rather 
the  comforting  doctrine  of  the  certainty  of  heaven,  at 
last,  for  all  who  are  saved.  We  have  not  space  to  deal 
with  the  subject  at  length  but  only  to  suggest  a  few 
thoughts  on  different  aspects  of  it. 

(1)  The  first  is  that  so  far  as  we  know  there  may 
be  degrees  of  blessedness  in  heaven,  according  as  we 
dwell  in  one  or  another  of  the  "many  mansions"  in 
the  spiritual  realm.  We  shall  all  be  rewarded  with 
the  beatific  vision  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  but  there 
may  well  be  differing  degrees  of  spiritual  insight  and 
while  the  reward  will  be  the  same  for  each  of  us  who 
is  saved  the  capacity  for  receiving  it  may  differ 
according  as  we  have  attained  in  our  life  on  earth. 
The  heavenly  life  need  not  be  all  on  one  level. 

(2)  As  there  are  differing  degrees  of  blessedness, 
so  there  may  be  different  duties  and  different  sta- 
tions, involving  of  course  no  separation  between  souls 
who  have  known  each  other  here,  but  allowing  man- 
ifold opportunities  for  varied  service.  One  will  be 
over  five  cities,  another  over  ten,  and  some  will  be  set 
on  thrones  judging,  or  governing,  the  twelve  tribes  of 
the  new  Israel.     The  life  of  heaven  will  be  a  life  of 


310  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

activity,  not  of  idleness :  who  could  possibly  conceive 
of  indolence  as  synonymous  with  happiness? 

(3)  Another  thought  is,  that  the  chief  character- 
istic of  the  heavenly  life  will  be  the  absolute  con- 
formity of  our  wills  to  the  will  of  God.  The  office 
of  His  creatures  there  will  be  to  do  His  service,  and 
since  this  can  be  happiness  to  them  only  in  so  far  as 
His  work  is  a  delight,  they  must  have  their  desires 
wholly  centered  in  Him,  or  heaven  would  not  be 
heaven  at  all. 

This  will  explain,  perhaps,  why  some  could  not  be 
happy,  even  if  in  spite  of  their  sin  they  were  per- 
mitted to  enter  heaven.  How  could  a  man  who  never 
gave  one  thought  to  the  service  of  God  here,  to  whom 
the  offices  of  prayer  were  a  tedious  task,  who  did  not 
acknowledge  His  sovereignty  or  give  a  single  thought 
to  His  existence,  whose  life  was  selfish  and  utterly 
unloving — how  could  such  a  man  live  in  heaven,  even 
if  he  were  permitted  to  enter  there,  where  the  praise 
and  worship  and  service  of  the  Almighty  must  occupy 
every  thought  of  the  heart  through  all  eternity  ? 

The  heavenly  life  will  be  an  absolute  conformity 
to  the  will  of  God :  how  much  that  will  explain,  too, 
about  life  here !  In  what  should  our  Christian  effort 
consist?  Not  wholly  in  the  avoidance  of  sin,  nor 
chiefly  in  seeking  some  better  motive  than  our  own 
interest,  but  rather  in  trying  to  act  simply,  solely, 
exclusively  from  a  desire  to  be  obedient  to  the  known 
appointment  of  God. 

Moreover,  there  is  suffering  here,  sorrow,  afflic- 
tion.    May  it  not  be  that  God  sometimes  makes  use 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  311 

of  these  to  help  us  to  subordinate  our  wills  to  His, 
teaching  us  to  say  from  the  heart,  "Thy  will  be 
done"  ?  When  things  are  hard  and  life  is  full  of  bit- 
terness, we  are  to  work  on,  feeling  that  God  may  be 
giving  us  this  trial  to  test  us,  that  if  we  succeed  it 
will  be  a  stepping  stone  to  higher  sonship  hereafter, 
knowing  that  the  angels,  the  saints,  our  own  departed 
perhaps,  God  Himself,  are  looking  on  us  and  rejoicing 
that  we  are  running  our  course  well,  that  we  are 
gradually  becoming  so  conformed  to  what  God  would 
have  us  be  that  our  wills  are  growing  into  unity  with 
His. 

(4)  This  will  bring  up  again  the  question  of  the 
lost.  It  is  sometimes  asked  how  we  can  ever  be  happy, 
even  in  heaven,  if  we  know  that  any  one  soul  has  per- 
ished and  more  particularly  if  any  one  whom  we  our- 
selves have  known  and  loved  is  shut  out  from  the 
beatific  vision.  May  we  not  find  the  answer  in  the 
fact  that  although  God  loves  all  souls  His  love  can 
find  no  place  of  lodgment  in  such  as  are  given  over  en- 
tirely to  evil  and  that  if  our  will  is  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  His  the  same  will  be  true  of  us?  For 
what  is  it,  after  all,  that  arouses  lasting  affection  ?  Is 
it  not  something  of  good  in  the  soul  ?  If  there  is  no 
trace  of  this  nor  yet  hope  of  it  for  true  love  to  rest 
upon,  must  not  love  be  baffled?  If  all  likeness  to 
God  is  gone,  all  touch  of  His  goodness  lost,  will  there 
be  anything  on  which  a  right  affection  can  expend 
itself  ?  This,  at  least,  may  be  a  hint  to  the  explana- 
tion of  what  cannot  possibly  be  made  absolutely  plain. 
At  any  rate,  then  we  shall  see  in  some  measure  as 


312  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

God  sees,  we  shall  know  all  that  is  to  be  known ;  and, 
because  at  last  we  understand,  no  disturbing  element 
will  mar  our  perfect  happiness. 

Then  we  shall  understand,  but  as  yet  we  know 
but  little.  We  do  know,  however,  all  that  we  need 
for  life  in  the  present.  Here,  as  we  live  day  by  day 
deeds  are  forming  habits  and  habits  are  forming 
character  and  when  character  becomes  fixed  our  fate 
is  determined  for  all  eternity.  No  smallest  action  of 
our  daily  life,  therefore — no  word,  no  thought  even — 
is  insignificant.  Each  goes  to  make  us  what  we  shall 
be,  for  weal  or  woe,  forever.  And  without  Thee,  0 
God,  we  are  unable  to  please  Thee.  Let  Thy  Holy 
Spirit  direct  and  rule  our  hearts.  Let  Thy  continual 
pity  cleanse  and  defend  us.  Without  Thee  nothing  is. 
strong,  nothing  is  holy.  Increase  and  multiply  upon 
us  Thy  mercy,  that  Thou  being  our  ruler  and  guide 
we  may  so  pass  through  things  temporal,  that  we 
finally  lose  not  the  things  eternal.  Grant  this,  0 
Heavenly  Father,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  our  Lord. 


THE  ANGELIC  WORLD  313 


XXXIY. 
THE  ANGELIC  WORLD 

IN  the  first  year  of  the  Great  War  a  story  ran  like 
wildfire  over  England,  telling  of  a  host  of  angelic 
beings  who  were  seen  at  Mons  and  had  stayed  the 
oncoming  rush  of  the  German  invaders.  The  story 
was  disproved.  Investigation  showed  that  it  had  its 
origin  in  the  poetic  imagination  of  a  newspaper  man. 
He  had  seen  the  Germans  stopped,  when  to  stop  them 
seemed  unbelievable  and  impossible.  That  they  were 
halted  by  that  thin,  worn  line  of  British  soldiers  was 
nothing  less  than  a  miracle.  It  meant  that  God  was 
on  the  side  of  the  defenders  of  liberty  and  righteous- 
ness. Nothing  less  than  His  presence  could  have 
saved  them  against  such  terrible  odds.  The  writer 
threw  this  into  poetic  form  and  the  result  was  the 
story  of  the  angels  at  Mons. 

Disproved  or  not,  however,  the  tale  of  the  angelic 
helpers  would  not  down.  There  are  those  to-day  who 
still  believe  it,  despite  the  clear  evidence  of  the  source 
of  the  story.  And  why  should  it  be  thought  impos- 
sible? We  know  that  we  are  no  longer  to  expect 
external  evidence  of  the  presence  of  spiritual  powers 


314  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

back  of  the  visible  imiverse — that  day  of  vision  has 
probably  passed — just  as  we  no  longer  have  the  visible 
presence  of  Jesns  Christ  on  earth,  but  have  something 
better  to  take  the  place  of  what  at  most  would  have 
been  local  and  limited.  There  is  evidence  enough 
of  the  presence  and  power  of  God  in  His  world. 
Whether  we  see  them  or  not,  then,  why  should  it  be 
thought  impossible  that  He  works  through  spiritual 
agents  ? 

Nature  itself  is  so  wonderful  and  we  have  learned 
so  much  in  recent  years  of  the  principles  that  produce 
phenomena  so  long  seen  and  so  little  understood, 
why  should  we  ever  halt  at  mystery?  To  be  told, 
for  example,  that  the  air  which  surrounds  us  is  per- 
vaded by  a  subtle  ether  and  that  this  is  in  continual 
vibration  from  waves  of  light  and  sound,  crossing  and 
recrossing  each  other  at  innumerable  points  till  the 
whole  is  like  a  quivering  mass  of  jelly ;  to  be  told  that 
this  "ethereal  gelatine"  is  as  solid  as  adamant;  to  be 
informed  that  it  permeates  the  most  solid  substances 
and  that  through  some  of  these  waves  of  electricity 
may  penetrate  where  waves  of  light  cannot — these  are 
things  which,  to  be  sure,  are  capable  of  a  certain  kind 
of  proof,  but  which  most  of  us  have  not  proved  though 
we  accept  them  as  part  of  our  every-day  belief. 

Indeed,  the  whole  world  is  full  of  mystery.  "Go 
into  the  fields,"  says  Canon  MacColl, '  "on  a  still, 
sultry  day  in  summer,  when  there  is  not  a  breath  of 
wind  to  stir  the  air  about  you.     All  nature  seems 


Christianity  in  Relation  to  Science  and  Morals. 


THE  ANGELIC  WORLD  315 

asleep;  the  cattle  lie  slumbering  in  the  shade;  the 
birds  are  silent  in  the  groves;  not  a  leaf  flutters  in 
the  woods ;  not  a  blade  of  grass  waves  in  the  meadow ; 
there  is  apparently  an  entire  absence  of  life  and 
movement.  But  if  you  had  eyes  that  could  penetrate 
through  leaf  and  stem,  through  blade  of  grass  and 
soil  and  rock,  and  if  you  had  ears  that  could  catch 
the  secret  harmonies  of  nature,  you  would  be  amazed 
at  the  multitude  of  sights  and  sounds  that  would  be 
suddenly  revealed  to  you.  You  would  find  that  there 
was  no  stillness  at  all  in  the  landscape  that  erstwhile 
appeared  to  be  so  fast  asleep.  There  is  movement 
everywhere.  The  tree,  whose  leaves  droop  motionless 
in  the  noonday  heat  and  whose  trunk  stands  erect 
against  the  sky,  is  throbbing  with  currents  of  life 
rushing  through  every  pore.  A  stream  of  sap  is 
coursing  between  bark  and  tissue  and  millions  of 
vesicles  empty  themselves  every  moment  through  all 
its  leaves.  There  is  not  a  blade  of  grass  in  the  field 
that  is  not  palpitating  with  the  life  that  is  inces- 
santly circulating  through  it.^'  It  is  Canon  Newbolt, 
I  think,  who  says  that  if  we  had  ears  to  hear  we 
should  turn  mad  at  "the  unceasing  roar  which  goes 
on  always  just  the  other  side  of  silence." 

Why  is  it,  then,  that  we  hesitate  and  draw  back 
when  we  hear  something  no  whit  more  remarkable 
about  the  spiritual  realm?  The  Bible  tells  us  that 
just  as  this  natural  world  is  so  mysterious  a  thing  in 
its  quivering  activity  so  there  is  also  around  and 
above  us  another  mysterious  life,  a  great  spirit  world, 
a  heavenly  host  of  the  messengers  of  God,  ever  doing 


316  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

Him  service  and  ever  at  His  command  succoring  and 
defending  us  in  the  manifold  perplexities  of  our  daily- 
work  and  duty.  Surely,  if  one  can  accept  the  revela- 
tions of  science  with  so  calm  and  composed  a  belief 
we  need  not  smile  in  compassionate  incredulity  when 
another  revelation  steps  in  with  its  wonderful  story 
and  asks  us  at  least  to  listen  before  we  turn  away  to 
scoff.  Let  us  briefly  summarize,  then,  what  the  Bible 
tells  us  of  this  angelic  world. 

First,  we  are  told  that  it  exists.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  at  all  of  that  in  the  mind  of  one  who  believes 
in  the  inspiration  of  Scripture.  The  Bible  is  full  of 
accounts  of  angelic  beings.  They  appear  to  the  patri- 
archs of  the  early  Jewish  dispensation;  they  are  seen 
in  visions  by  prophets ;  one  of  them  brings  the  news 
of  our  Lord's  advent  to  Zacharias  and  the  Virgin 
Mother;  they  herald  our  Lord's  birth;  they  succor 
Him  in  His  temptation  and  in  His  agony;  they  roll 
away  the  great  stone  from  His  grave  and  afterward 
guard  the  empty  tomb ;  they  proclaim  His  resurrection 
and  hover  about  Him  at  His  ascension;  they  aid  His 
imprisoned  disciples;  they  people  His  courts  in  the 
heavenly  places  shown  to  the  seer  on  Patmos.  Yes, 
the  angels  exist. 

Next,  we  are  told  something  of  their  mode  of 
existence.  It  is  like  what  our  own  resurrection  life 
is  to  be,  when  we  shall  be  as  the  angels  in  heaven  who 
neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage.  The  words 
imply  that  the  angels  did  not  come  into  existence 
after  the  same  manner  of  propagation  as  do  men; 


THE  ANGELIC  WORLD  317 

they  are  the  immediate  creation  of  God,  as  their 
name  (sons  of  God)  would  indicate.  Godet  has 
pointed  out  that  we  might  expect  this  from  what  we 
know  of  life  here  on  earth.  For,  first  we  have  vege- 
table life — species  without  individuality ;  then  animal 
life — in  which  individuality  exists,  but  is  over-shad- 
owed by  species;  then  man  himself — ^where  we  find 
species  and  individuality  again,  but  now  with  indi- 
viduality as  the  predominant  fact.  Why  not,  there- 
fore, the  last  measure  of  the  equation,  angelic  life,  in 
which  there  is  individuality  without  species?  In 
other  words,  with  the  angels  there  is  no  unity  of 
substance  by  which  all  would  have  kinship  one  with 
another,  but  each  individual  stands  by  himself,  with 
no  such  common  ties  as  bind  the  human  race  together 
in  a  union  so  strong  that  we  are  linked  with  all  our 
fellows  by  virtue  of  that  nature  which  we  all  inherit 
from  our  first  forefather.  God  created  individuals 
from  whom  the  race  has  descended  in  an  unbroken 
line  of  natural  birth,  but  He  did  not  so  create  the 
angels;  each  was  made  directly  by  the  Creator's 
hand.  ^ 

The  angels,  then,  exist;  and  their  mode  of  exist- 
ence is  peculiar  in  that  they  are  the  immediate  cre- 
ation of  God,  each  taking  life  from  Him  and  not 
existing  by  any  secondary  and  mediate  act  of  propa- 
gation. We  have  yet  to  inquire  what  relations,  if  any, 
they  bear  to  nature  and  to  man.    And,  first,  to  nature. 


'Old  Testament  Studies. 


318  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

It  has  been  supposed  from  certain  passages  of 
Scripture  that  the  angels  were  not  only  the  first 
created  beings  but  that  they  form  a  kind  of  ^'spiritual 
substratum"  in  which  (to  put  it  rather  crudely  and 
after  a  homely  figure  of  speech)  material  things  were 
afterward  planted.  In  the  Book  of  Job  we  read  that 
at  the  creation  of  the  world  the  morning  stars  sang 
together  and  all  the  sons  of  God — ^the  angels — shouted 
for  joy;  from  which  it  is  inferred  that  before  the 
earth  came  into  existence  the  angels  were  present 
waiting  for  this  new  manifestation  of  God's  love.  It 
is  impossible  to  settle  any  theory  very  definitely  from 
language  that  is  highly  poetical,  but  other  hints  in 
the  Bible  certainly  lead  us  to  the  same  conclusion  and 
there  seems  also  a  special  significance  in  our  Lord's 
words,  recorded  by  St.  John,  "Hereafter  ye  shall  see 
heaven  open,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  upon  the  Son  of  Man," — ascending  and 
then  descending :  as  if  their  home  were  here  on  earth, 
and  they  left  it  only  that  having  departed  for  a  time, 
they  might  return  with  gifts  for  us.  They  were  here 
before  we  were,  here  before  the  world  itself  was  cre- 
ated, here  as  the  idea  of  things,  the  counterparts  or 
doubles  in  the  spiritual  world  of  the  material  things 
in  the  natural  world ;  an  unseen  universe  back  of  this 
visible  one,  giving  this  its  beauty  and  at  the  same 
time  having  some  control  over  its  powers.  Four 
angels  hold  the  four  winds,  in  the  revelation  of  St. 
John;  another  angel  has  power  over  the  fire;  every- 
where we  have  a  picture  of  these  angelic  guardians, 
presiding  over  nature's  forces,  giving  her  that  charm 


THE  ANGELIC  WORLD  319 

which  attracts  us  more  and  more  the  deeper  our 
spiritual  life  becomes  and  standing  in  such  close 
connection  with  her  that  the  sacred  writers  call  upon 
sun  and  moon,  fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapor,  through 
their  angelic  counterparts,  to  praise  and  magnify  the 
Lord. 

Surely  there  is  something  inspiring  in  such  a 
view  of  nature.  "What,"  asks  Cardinal  Newman, ' 
"would  be  the  thoughts  of  a  man  who,  when  examin- 
ing a  flower,  or  an  herb,  or  a  pebble,  or  a  ray  of  light, 
which  he  treats  as  something  so  beneath  him  in  the 
scale  of  existence,  suddenly  discovered  that  he  was  in 
the  presence  of  some  powerful  being  who  was  hidden 
behind  the  visible  things  he  was  inspecting — who, 
though  concealing  his  wise  hand,  was  giving  them 
their  beauty  and  grace  and  perfection,  as  being  God's 
instrument  for  that  purpose,  nay  whose  robe  and 
ornaments  those  objects  were" — for  "every  breath  of 
air  and  ray  of  light,  every  beautiful  prospect,  is,  as 
it  were,  the  skirts  of  their  garments,  the  waving  of 
the  robes  of  those  whose  faces  see  God." 

We  see,  then,  the  relation  the  angels  bear  to  nature 
— ^how  they  lie  back  of  the  visible  world,  giving  it  of 
their  radiance  and  loveliness.  Let  us  look  next  at 
what  Scripture  tells  us  of  their  relations  to  men.  Of 
the  reality  of  this  relationship  we  are  assured  by  our 
Lord^s  own  words,  when  He  tells  us  not  to  despise  the 
weak   and  the  little  ones,  because   in  heaven   their 


Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua. 


320  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  the  Father  as 
they  stand  in  His  immediate  presence. 

So  we  learn  that  angels,  sent  to  succor  and  defend 
us  on  earth,  give  us  their  protection  ("He  shall  give 
His  angels  charge  concerning  thee,  to  keep  thee  in  all 
thy  ways") ;  they  nourish  men  and  minister  to  their 
wants,  as  they  did  to  Elijah  when  he  lay  under  the 
juniper  tree  and  to  our  Lord  in  His  temptation  and 
in  the  agony  of  Gethsemane;  they  bring  messages  to 
us,  as  Gabriel  did  at  the  Annunciation  or  as  did  the 
company  who  appeared  to  the  shepherds  the  first 
Christmas  night ;  they  assist  in  our  worship :  St.  Paul, 
writing  to  the  Corinthians  about  reverence  in  the  serv- 
ices of  the  Church,  tells  them  that  the  angels  are 
always  near  them,  pleased  at  what  is  devout  and 
fitting,  grieved  at  all  irreverence  and  carelessness. 

Whether  or  not  each  soul  has  its  particular  guard- 
ian angel,  it  is  clear  that  these  spiritual  beings  take  a 
deep  interest  in  the  affairs  of  men,  watching  over 
Christ's  little  ones  and  rejoicing  over  His  penitents. 
God's  kingdom  embraces  angels  as  well  as  men,  and 
though  we  are  not  united  to  them  by  the  ties  of 
nature,  the  Father  has  seen  good  to  knit  us  to  them 
by  their  offices  of  love  in  a  bond  that  will  be  even 
closer  hereafter  than  it  is  now.  Nations  also  seem 
to  have  their  angelic  guardians  and  advocates,  such 
as  the  "Prince  of  Persia"  and  the  "Prince  of 
Grecia",  and  perhaps  Churches  also  have  their 
"angels",  though  the  meaning  of  the  term  in  connec- 
tion with  the  seven  Churches  of  Asia  is  not  altogether 
clear.    It  may  be  that  their  various  duties,  too,  account 


THE  ANGELIC  WORLD  321 

for  gradations  of  rank  among  them — angels,  arch- 
angels, etc. — though  possibly  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul, 
in  enumerating  these  ranks,  may  be  simply  adopting 
the  language  of  the  heretical  teachers  whose  doctrine 
they  are  opposing. 

Finally,  as  there  are  good  angels  who  guard  and 
protect  us,  so  there  are  evil  ones,  fallen  spirits  who 
are  working  against  men — spirits  who  still  retain 
much  of  their  old  power  and  are  therefore  terrible 
foes  in  the  war  they  wage  with  us.  "We  wrestle  not 
against  flesh  and  blood,"  says  St.  Paul,  '^Dut  against 
principalities,  against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of 
the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wicked- 
ness in  high  places."  At  the  head  of  this  host  of 
fallen  spirits  is  Satan,  an  archangel  who  fell  through 
pride,  carried  away  others  with  him  and  has  now 
become  the  incarnation  of  evil.  It  has  been  supposed 
by  some  that  the  title  given  him  by  our  Lord,  "the 
Prince  of  this  World,"  shows  that  the  earth  was  orig- 
inally intended  to  be  Satan's  own  kingdom  and  that 
he  has  therefore  a  special  hatred  against  men  as  the 
possessors  of  his  former  power.  That  he  did  have 
some  such  dominion  seems  to  be  implied  in  his  words 
to  our  Lord,  "All  this  power  will  I  give  Thee,  and  the 
glory  of  them,  for  that  is  delivered  to  me,  and  to 
whomsoever  I  will  I  give  it." 

At  the  head  of  the  company  of  the  blessed  spirits, 
however,  is  St.  Michael,  the  vanquisher  of  Satan  and 
leader  of  the  hosts  of  heaven.  His  name  (Michael 
means  "Who  is  like  unto  God?")  shows  the  immeasur- 
able distance  that  separates  even  the  highest  of  ere- 


322  THE  FAITH  BY  WHICH  WE  LIVE 

ated  beings  from  the  Creator  Himself.  Michael  is 
the  warrior  of  God,  while  Gabriel  ("God's  hero")  is 
His  messenger,  the  heavenly  evangelist.  Both  alike 
minister  to  men,  though  in  different  ways. 

Tried  and  tempted  as  we  are  here,  we  have  there- 
fore in  the  thought  of  this  angelic  creation  a  constant 
reminder  that  we  are  not  struggling  alone.  If  it  is 
hard,  sometimes,  to  realize  God's  help  and  presence, 
we  shall  find  a  stimulus  to  faith  in  the  recollection 
of  these  princes  and  champions  of  the  heavenly 
realm  who  hover  around  us,  ever  ready  to  do 
God's-  bidding  on  our  behalf;  for  so  our  spiritual 
senses  will  be  quickened,  and  from  the  thought 
of  these  His  servants  we  shall  the  sooner  rise  to  the 
thought  of  God,  who  is  our  ever-present  Helper  and 
Defender.  We  shall  the  more  readily,  too,  rejoice  in 
the  great  love  of  God  in  sending  these  radiant  ones  to 
minister  to  our  comfort — a  love  so  unselfish  that  He 
is  willing  to  share  with  others  of  His  creatures  our 
grateful  response  to  it  by  making  them  the  bearers  of 
His  grace  and  therefore  our  benefactors.  As  in 
thankful  love  we  praise  the  Giver  of  all  this  goodness, 
we  shall  look  forward  with  deeper  faith  and  fuller 
joy  to  the  day  when  the  bliss  now  given  to  these  holy 
spirits  shall  be  ours  as  well,  when  we,  too,  shall  stand 
in  God's  presence  and  with  angels  and  archangels 
and  all  the  company  of  heaven  shall  laud  and  magnify 
His  glorious  name,  joining  in  the  seraphic  hymn  and 
ever  more  praising  Him  and  saying,  "Holy,  Holy, 
Holy,  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  heaven  and  earth  are  full 
of  Thy  glory :  Glory  be  to  Thee,  0  Lord  Most  High.'' 


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